Electionline Weekly January-4th-2024

Legislative Updates

Indiana: Senate Bill 26 would prohibit someone from carrying a gun in any room where ballots are being counted, certain areas where voters could gather and at the polls themselves. It would also ban someone from having a gun in the 50-foot area leading up to the polls. That area is called a “chute.” A person who not only violates the proposed law by having a gun in the restricted areas, but then points the gun at someone, could be looking at a prison term of six months to 2 1/2 years. In Indiana, voters are allowed to bring guns into a voting location, unless it’s a church, a school or a private space where firearms are not allowed. State Sen. Lonnie Randolph, D-District 2, who introduced SB26, proposed a similar measure in 2022. That bill never received a hearing.

Iowa: Secretary of State Paul Pate outlined his legislative priorities this week and emphasized the need for consistency during vote recounts and poll worker trainings. Pate said he wants all counties to canvas votes on the Tuesday after election day, which would eliminate Monday as an option. He also proposed that having the number of people helping with a recount should be based on the respective county’s population. He said this would help make the process more efficient, accurate and consistent across the state. We have to constantly be on guard,” Pate said. “There are a lot of foreign actors that try and mess with our elections and we’ve done a great job on the cyber side. We also know there is a thing about voter confidence and after the last presidential election we’ve got a lot of national attention to it. Iowans have a great confidence in our system and we believe we’ve done a good job but you’ve gotta stay ahead of it. Pate mentioned he wants to make sure poll workers are trained the same, no matter what district they’re in, to provide all Iowa voters with the same experience.

New Hampshire: This week, by a vote of 195-172, the House passed a bill that would make registering to vote an online experience. House Bill 463 would allow the Secretary of State’s Office to create an online election information portal that would let new voters register to vote in their city or town over the internet – and would let all voters request absentee ballots online as well. The bill moves next to the Senate.

Also this week, the House killed a Senate bill, Senate Bill 156, that would have allowed an authorized election official access to nonpublic information in the state’s voter database in order to verify a voter’s identity, if necessary.

Other elections-related bills still up for consideration this year include: House Bill 1133, which would allow overseas voters and those in the military to send in their completed ballots by email, House Bill 1264, would mandate that towns and cities acquire the machines for use in local elections as well. The machines allow voters to use tablets and sound prompts to more easily vote.

House Bill 1569, would increase the requirements to vote by requiring a photo identification at the polls – with no exceptions. Currently, voters may fill out an affidavit that attests to who they are and where they live and must mail documents to prove this to the Secretary of State’s Office within seven days of the election, or face criminal charges. Lynn’s bill would eliminate that option, and it would require new voters to present a “birth certificate, passport, naturalization papers” or other document that demonstrates their citizenship in order to register.

House Bill 1364 would make harassment of election officials a crime, and would make it illegal to post personal information online that brings an “imminent and serious threat” to them or their family.

HB 1364 would also prohibit any threats of force or violence made “in retaliation against the official on account of the official’s performance of the official’s duties” – currently, the anti-intimidation law applies only while the poll worker is working at the polling place.

House Bill 1310, would require that supervisors of the checklist meet at least every 90 days – during election years and non-election years – to keep the town or city voter rolls continually up to date. Senate Bill 490 would shorten the state’s schedule to update the voter rolls from every 10 years to every two years.

House Bill 1557 would mandate that the Secretary of State’s Office enter into a membership agreement with ERIC. Republicans have opposed membership, objecting to portions of the program that promote voter registration. Senate Bill 489 would require the Secretary of State’s Office to conduct an audit of at least eight ballot counting devices across the state after an election.

New Jersey: The Senate passed Senator Vin Gopal’s bill, S-3598, aiming to enhance voting machine accuracy. This legislation requires annual recertification and checks upon software modifications by the Secretary of State. The bill responds to a Monmouth County incident where a school board election result was overturned due to a voting machine error. It mandates testing and a checklist to ensure accurate vote recording and tabulation. The Senate approved the bill unanimously with a 34-0 vote.

Charleston South Carolina: A resolution supporting a change to the way South Carolinians elect local officials failed to gain traction among Charleston City Council members. At his final council meeting on Dec. 19, outgoing Mayor John Tecklenburg introduced the resolution that calls on the state’s Legislature to add instant runoff, or ranked-choice, voting as an alternative to current election methods. “I want to make clear that we’re not approving instant runoff voting at all,” Tecklenburg said ahead to the vote. “We’re just asking the Legislature to give us that as an additional option and in the event that they decide to pass that on the state level, then a future mayor and a future council would have to make a decision as to whether we want it or not. We’re just asking for it as an option.” The change would require a change in state law, and then municipalities would have to opt in. Opposing bills, one calling for ranked-choice voting and another banning it, have been introduced in the state Legislature.

South Carolina: Under a newly proposed Senate bill S. 886, those applying for a driver’s license, ID card or renewal license can use the same signature on their application form as an “auto-registration” to vote. The bill was proposed by Senator Deon Tedder. Tedder says the goal is to provide better accessibility to the right to vote by providing a one-stop service opportunity. This is contrary to the current method, where it is required to fill out a separate form and sometimes travel to register. Those who do not want to participate and instead go the traditional route may request to decline the automatic registration. Tedder says it is a “common-sense” bill and would ease the process for many in the community, including first-time voters, those who are actively moving, senior voters and more. “When I go to places, speak to people and ask who’s registered to vote, there’s still so many who are not. It’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because there’s an extra step and they actually have to go somewhere to do it. We know everyone’s going to get a driver’s license or identification card. Let’s make it easier,” Tedder says.

Virginia: A bill pre-filed ahead of the 2024 General Assembly session would add space on Virginia’s voter registration application for voters to choose which political party they affiliate with. Additionally, parties would then have the option to restrict their primary to only voters registered with that party. “A lot of party officials really push for closed primaries,” Randolph-Macon political science professor Rich Meagher said. “If you want to vote in a Republican primary, you should be a Republican. You should have to declare your party allegiance … that way, it keeps it in the family.” Currently, Virginia holds open primaries, where voters have the option to choose which party’s primary they vote in. The current system does give some voters in non-competitive districts a voice, Meagher said — something the proposed bill could change. The bill, should it pass, wouldn’t take effect until 2025, meaning it would not affect next year’s presidential primary elections.

Clark County, Washington: A proposed initiative would require post-election audits and enhanced security at ballot drop boxes, among other changes. Elections officials, however, say parts of the initiative may conflict with state and federal law. Rob Anderson filed the proposed Restore Election Confidence initiative with the Clark County Elections Office, which forwarded it to the county prosecuting attorney’s office for legal review and a ballot title. Then, Anderson will need to gather roughly 27,000 signatures by June 8 to get it on the November ballot. The initiative would prohibit “fake ballots” from being sent or counted and require 85 percent of all ballots to be processed and tallied by the end of Election Day. The initiative also calls for security cameras at ballot drop locations, as well as the cleanup of voter registration rolls 30 days before ballots are mailed. If voters approve the initiative in November, it calls for all the measures to be in place by the next election. Funding to implement the changes would come from the election office’s existing budget. Any additional funding would be approved by the Clark County Council. However, the initiative states that “no new taxes or fees shall be proposed or adopted as a source of funding.

Legal Updates

Arizona: Cochise County Supervisors Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby pleaded not guilty Dec. 21, 2023 to felony charges for delaying the certification of their county’s 2022 midterm election results. Judd and Crosby had balked for weeks about certifying the results. They didn’t cite problems with election results. But they said they weren’t satisfied that the machines used to tabulate ballots were properly certified for use in elections, though state and federal election officials said they were. During brief arraignment hearings late last year, Judd and Crosby pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy and interference with an election officer and were informed of future court dates, including a May 16 trial. The county finally certified its results after a judge ruled the Republican supervisors broke the law when they refused to sign off on the vote count by a deadline. Crosby skipped the meeting, leaving Judd and Supervisor Ann English, the board’s lone Democrat, to finally approve the canvass, allowing the statewide certification to go forward as scheduled.

Huntington Beach, California: Superior Court Judge Nick Dourbetas declined to block a voter ID referendum from appearing on the March 2024 ballot in the coastal enclave of Huntington Beach, California. In a short, 1-page ruling, Dourbetas wrote that the petitioner, a Huntington Beach resident named Mark Bixby, wanted “the judiciary serve as an auditor of what the electorate may consider for the supposed purpose of preserving democracy.” “This runs counter to the general rule counseling against pre-election review of the contents of the ballot,” Dourbetas wrote. “If this measure were to pass, and if its implementation raises an issue of constitutionality, at that point, it may be appropriate for judicial review.” Should the measure be approved by voters in March, then the court could take up the issue of whether or not the law was constitutional. In a written statement, Bixby said, “A municipal voter ID law is wrong; it violates the Constitutional rights to vote and state law, and we intend to ensure that it never gets imposed in the City of Huntington Beach. Voters should vote down this nonsense, and if they don’t we will make sure that the courts strike it down.” In October, a fractious Huntington Beach City Council voted 4-3 to add three charter amendments to the March 2024 primary ballot. One would give the city the authority to run its own local elections, a power which currently rests with the county. It would also give the city the power to ask voters for a photo ID before being allowed to cast their ballots.

Colorado: Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold submitted on her behalf by the office of Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a so-called writ of certiorari, a formal order issued by the Supreme Court when it agrees to take up a case. In a historic ruling issued Dec. 19, the Colorado Supreme Court ordered Griswold not to place Trump on the ballot, siding with plaintiffs who argued that he is ineligible for the office of president under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Section 3 of the Amendment, ratified in the wake of the Civil War, prohibits a person who “engaged in insurrection” after taking an oath to support the Constitution from holding office again. In their filing, attorneys for Griswold echoed the position taken by the plaintiffs in a brief filed, asking the court to weigh in on two key questions raised by the case — whether Section 3 of the 14th Amendment applies to the president, and whether it can be enforced by a state without congressional action — but decline to review a third question presented by the Colorado Republican Party, asking whether denying it the ability to nominate “the candidate of its choice” in an election violates the First Amendment.

Georgia: District Court Judge Steve C. Jones ruled this week that a Texas group’s campaign to challenge the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of Georgia voters in the nationally watched U.S. Senate runoffs did not violate the Voting Rights Act. Jones concluded that Fair Fight Action did not show that True the Vote’s actions leading up to the dual Senate runoffs in early 2021 amounted to voter intimidation, as the voting rights group founded by Democrat Stacey Abrams attempted to argue. “Not only have Plaintiffs failed to overcome the fact that their actions did not result in any direct voter contact or alone include or direct county Boards of Elections to pursue an eligibility inquiry, but there is no evidence that Defendants’ actions caused (or attempted to cause) any voter to be intimidated, coerced, or threatened in voting,” Jones wrote in a 145-page ruling. Jones did, however, express some concern for the conservative group’s methods, particularly when it came to compiling a list of voters to challenge. “(True the Vote’s) list utterly lacked reliability. Indeed, it verges on recklessness,” he wrote. “The Court has heard no testimony and seen no evidence of any significant quality control efforts, or any expertise guiding the data process.” Jones also emphasized in a footnote that his ruling should not be misconstrued as the court condoning True the Vote’s actions in pushing “a mass number of seemingly frivolous challenges.”

U.S. District Judge Steve Jones ruled that Georgia’s Republican-led General Assembly “fully complied” with his orders to create an additional political district with a majority of Black voters. In 2022, Jones found the state’s 2021 political district map violated the Voting Rights Act by diluting Black voting power in certain areas of the state, and in October the judge ordered state legislators to draw an additional, majority-Black congressional district in the west-metro Atlanta area. The new district lines, which keep Republicans in control of the state’s legislature and congressional delegation, were signed into law on Dec. 8 by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. While the state gained additional districts with a majority of Black voters under the redrawn maps, it changed little in partisan representation, Judge Jones noted. “Here, the committee and floor debate transcripts make clear that the General Assembly created the 2023 Remedial Congressional Plan in a manner that politically protected the majority party (i.e., the Republican Party) as much as possible,” he wrote in his order. “However, redistricting decisions by a legislative body with an eye toward securing partisan advantage does not alone violate Section 2” of the Voting Rights Act, the judge added.

Iowa: On November 21, 2023, Kim Taylor, wife of a Woodbury County supervisor, was found guilty of 26 counts of false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration, and 23 counts of fraudulent voting. Taylor filed for an acquittal on December 1, 2023 claiming that there wasn’t enough evidence for a conviction. In the state’s rebuttal late last year they argued that the families that testified at trial were more than enough to prove Taylor’s guilt. The state is asking the court to deny Taylor’s motion for acquittal. There is no date for when the court will decide on the motion. Taylor faces a maximum of five years in prison on each of the 52 counts. A sentencing date had not yet been set.

Maine: Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has appealed Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows’ decision to disqualify him from the state’s presidential primary ballot. A complaint filed in Kennebec County Superior Court on Tuesday says Bellows was a “biased decision maker” who should have recused herself from the decision. It also says the Maine secretary of state does not have the legal authority to consider the federal constitutional issues presented in complaints seeking to bar Trump from the ballot and, as a result, that Trump will be illegally excluded from the ballot based on Bellows’ decision. The filing also says that Bellows “made multiple errors of law and acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner.” Bellows anticipated a challenge and had said her ruling would be suspended until any court appeals could be heard. “Under Maine law, an appeal of the decision to the Maine Superior Court is the next step in the process laid out in the Maine election law,” Bellows said in a prepared statement Tuesday. “I have confidence in my decision and in the rule of law. Everyone who serves in government has a duty and obligation to uphold the Constitution first above all.”

Michigan: On December 21, a panel of three federal judges ruled that 13 of Michigan’s House and Senate districts, all currently held by Democrats, will need to be redrawn. Agee v. Benson, went to trial in November and alleged the legislative boundaries drawn up by the Michigan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (MICRC) violated the Voting Rights Act (VRA) by diluting Black voting power in more than a dozen Detroit-area legislative districts. “The record here shows overwhelmingly — indeed, inescapably — that the Commission drew the boundaries of plaintiffs’ districts predominantly on the basis of race,” stated the opinion. “We hold that those districts were drawn in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.” The opinion came from U.S. Circuit Judge Raymond M. Kethledge and U.S. District Court Judges Paul L. Maloney and Janet T. Neff, who were all appointed by Republican former President George W. Bush. The plaintiffs, 19 African-American Detroiters who live in 13 different Michigan House and Senate districts that each include a portion of Detroit, filed the suit in March 2022.

The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that that Donald Trump can appear on the state’s Republican primary ballot, but the court declined to weigh in for now on whether Trump is eligible to run in the general election and serve again as president.

Montana: Flathead County District Court Judge Robert Allison has granted Kalispell city councilor Ryan Hunter’s motion to intervene in a case that seeks to nullify the November municipal election and hold it again. Following a clerical error in the Nov. 7 election, the county election administrator — through a court petition filed early this month — is seeking to nullify the election and hold a redo for the four Council wards on the ballot. Hunter, in court documents, says that the annulment and initiation of a new election would cause him and the public “considerable harm” and could not have had a meaningful impact on the election outcome for Ward 3, which he was reelected to serve. The error caused some ballots to be distributed incorrectly during the election process. The county says 176 voters voted on an incorrect ballot, but that 1,400 eligible voters were affected by the error. Flathead County Clerk and Recorder Debbie Pierson is asking the court to allow her department to conduct a new election and pay for the election.

New Hampshire: The Democratic National Committee and New Hampshire Democrats are suing state officials over a Republican-backed law that they claim “imposes undue burdens” on Granite Staters’ right to vote. In a 27-page complaint filed December 22, 2023 in New Hampshire Superior Court, the Democrats argue that Senate Bill 418 unjustly complicates statewide elections by requiring those who register to vote on Election Day without photo ID to send in verifying documentation to the New Hampshire Secretary of State. Those voters will submit an “affidavit ballot” on Election Day, which “will be excluded from the final vote count unless the person complies with a burdensome identity-verification process within seven days of the election,” the Democrats claim in the lawsuit. Should those voters miss the seven-day deadline, not only will their votes be tossed under the law, but the secretary of state would be required to turn over their names to the state attorney general’s office for possible criminal investigation. The law “does not require that these individuals be informed that their votes will not be counted or that they have been referred for potential prosecution,” the Democrats claim.

New York: Supreme Court Justice Christina L. Ryba has rejected a request from U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik and the Republican Party to temporarily suspend a new state law that allows any registered voter in New York to cast their ballot early by mail. The case, in which the GOP is seeking a temporary injunction while they argue their case that the law violates the constitution, will next head to an appellate court in Albany. Stefanik is seeking a final ruling on the merits of the case ahead of the 2024 election, in which New York’s congressional races could dictate control of Congress. Under prior law, a voter could file an absentee ballot if they provided an excuse such as being a member of the military, traveling or having a conflict such as a pre-scheduled surgery. A temporary law during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed anyone concerned about contracting the virus to request an absentee ballot. Stefanik has argued the only way to expand who is eligible to vote by mail is through a constitutional amendment. Ryba found the GOP’s argument for a preliminary injunction, which would have prevented the law from taking effect in 2024, is insufficient. She said the Republicans did not demonstrate they would face “irreparable harm” if the law stays on the books. Republicans immediately appealed the ruling.

North Carolina: U.S. Magistrate Judge Joe Webster issued an order recommending to deny a request by lawyers for groups representing poor residents and Black union members to invalidate what they called the “strict liability” law. The law was first challenged in part on racial bias claims over three years ago, with those who sued hoping to get it addressed in time for the 2020 elections. But following a series of legal hurdles, Webster’s ruling came just weeks before absentee voting begins for this year’s primary elections in the nation’s ninth-largest state for contests like president, governor and attorney general. The groups who sued state election officials can formally object to Webster’s recommendation to deny their motion and dismiss the litigation to U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs in Winston-Salem, who will make a final decision that could still be appealed further. The lawsuit has continued despite a change to the challenged law in the fall by the Republican-controlled General Assembly, which specified that a felony offender has to know they were breaking the law by voting for there to be a crime. Without that change, which went into effect Jan. 1, a person could be prosecuted even if casting a ballot was an unintentional mistake. Webster, who listened to in-person arguments in Durham federal court in November, sided with state attorneys defending the law who argued that the groups now lack legal standing to sue. But the Jan. 1 alteration requiring intentionality in voting illegally “substantially diminishes any prospective voter’s perceived threat of prosecution and any resulting confusion,” Webster wrote. “As a result, Plaintiffs can no longer claim that they must divert substantial resources to educate volunteers and prospective voters regarding the new law because much of the confusion concerning one’s eligibility to vote has been eliminated,” he added.

Pennsylvania: Three Democratic national committees are filing an intervention motion to counter GOP attempts to disqualify Pennsylvania voters’ misdated mail-in ballots in future elections. The Democratic National Committee (DNC), Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) filed the motion Friday to intervene in Pennsylvania State Conference of NAACP Branches v. Secretary, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania so that mail-in ballots with the wrong date — or no date — on the outer ballot would be counted. “The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy,” the executive directors of the organizations — Sam Cornale, (DNC) Christie Roberts, (DSCC) and Julie Merz, (DCCC) — said in a joint statement. “Every eligible voter in Pennsylvania and across the country has a constitutional right to have their voice heard, but Republicans’ assaults on their freedom to cast their ballots would throw away Pennsylvanians’ perfectly legal votes and undermine our democracy. At every turn, as the GOP launches cynical, baseless attacks on Americans’ voting rights, Democrats will intervene on the side of voters.” The committees are asking to intervene to ensure that any timely mail ballots that are undated or incorrectly dated are counted in all future elections. The date is not material to the validity of the vote or the eligibility of the voter, the groups argue.

South Carolina: South Carolina voters have filed a lawsuit hoping to expand absentee voting for all, regardless of age. Attorney Armand Derfner represents several Palmetto State voters suing the state over the absentee voting rules. Those individuals explained that the right to vote shouldn’t come with obstacles in a lawsuit filed in late December. “The right to vote really belongs to all the people,” Derfner said. After 2020, state lawmakers adjusted absentee voting rules, making it harder to qualify. One of those qualifications is being over the age of 65. Anyone 65 or over can vote absentee. Derfner’s clients argued that someone’s age should not give them special voting privileges. They also argue that the law violates the 26th Amendment, which reads: “The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.” “There are several plaintiffs in the case,” Derfner said. “All of them [are] under 65, and all of them want the opportunity [to vote].” The five-page lawsuit compared the rule to age discrimination. However, another perspective of absentee ballots is their convenience.

Virginia: The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit dismissed an appeal filed against Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares over allegedly misleading political flyers mailed out before election season this year. Look Ahead America, Inc., also known as Virginia Voter Assistance, was distributing mailers that Miyares claims were “false and intimidating” to voters in northern Virginia, leading the attorney general to send a cease and desist letter in October. According to Miyares, the mailers stated that if voters did not cast their ballots they could lose their Social Security income, Medicare eligibility, unemployment benefits, child tax credits, child custody rights, and concealed carry permits. In turn, Look Ahead America Inc. filed a lawsuit against Miyares challenging voter intimidation statutes. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied the organization’s requested injunction, however.

More than a year after the indictment of a county election official on corruption charges, the Virginia Attorney General’s Office dropped the final charge in the case. During a brief hearing, Judge Carroll A. Weimer Jr. granted a motion to end the case against Michele White, formerly registrar for Prince William County. Charges against White initially included two felonies, corrupt conduct and making a false statement regarding an election, along with a misdemeanor count of neglect of duty by an elections officer. The attorney general’s office dropped the felony charges against her in December. In court filings, James R. Herring, assistant attorney general, explained that a key witness, Sean Mulligan, “conveniently and quite surprisingly provided a different version of events from that which he had previously provided to investigators.” White’s attorney, Zachary Stafford of the firm Lawrence, Smith and Gardner, said Mulligan, who served as assistant registrar, never changed his story. Rather, investigators failed to properly vet the witness. He explained that the most concerning charge against White involved altering election results in VERIS (Virginia Election and Registration Information System) on Nov. 7, 2020, with incorrect numbers for the central absentee precinct. That charge was subsequently disproven, Stafford said.

Wisconsin: Dane County Circuit Court Judge Ryan Nilsestuen this week issued two decisions making broad changes to how state law and elections rules require a witness to an absentee ballot to provide their address in order for the ballot to be counted. In one lawsuit from the local chapter of the League of Women Voters Nilsestuen said rejecting ballots based on a failure to meet the witness address requirements violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In another lawsuit from RISE — a group that in part advocates for student debt relief and youth get-out-the-vote efforts — the judge adopted a more lenient definition of the term “address” as pushed for by the group. The two decisions mark another twist in years of legal wrangling over the linchpin swing state’s absentee voting rules, particularly those regarding witnesses to absentee ballots that must sign the ballots’ certificates. Wisconsin, where the last two presidential elections have been decided by less than 25,000 votes, has its primary for the 2024 contest on April 2.

In a 4-3 decision released December 22, 2023, the Wisconsin Supreme Court held that Wisconsin’s voting maps as currently drawn violate the state constitution and must be redrawn in time for the 2024 election. Under the Wisconsin Constitution, state legislative districts must consist of “contiguous territory.” Yet, the majority opinion states, “the number of state legislative districts containing territory completely disconnected from the rest of the district is striking.” “At least 50 of 99 Assembly districts and at least 20 of 33 Senate districts include separate, detached territory,” states the majority opinion, written by Justice Jill Karofsky. The voters who brought the lawsuit, Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, argued that the current districts violate the constitution and asked the Court to order the adoption of remedial maps. They also asked the Court to declare the November 2022 state Senate elections unlawful, and to order special elections for state Senate seats that would otherwise not be on the ballot until November 2026. The Court’s ruling agrees with the petitioners that “Wisconsin’s state legislative districts must be composed of physically adjoining territory,” and enjoins the Wisconsin Elections Commission from using the current legislative maps in future elections. But it declined to invalidate the results of the 2022 state Senate elections.

In a 2-1 decision, a three-judge panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeals overturned a Walworth County Circuit Court order that had dismissed a case against Walworth County Register in Probate Kristina Secord who had prohibited Ron Heuer and the Wisconsin Voters Alliance from obtaining records of people placed under guardianship to check them against the statewide voter registration list. At issue in the lawsuit is the balance between protecting the right to privacy for individuals who have been declared ineligible to vote based on incompetency and preventing valid votes from being canceled or diluted by ineligible votes. In the lawsuit, Heuer and WVA alleged the number of “ineligible voters” listed on the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s public website was inconsistent with counties’ tallies from voting wards. The court ruled that “if the voter ineligibility determination is, in fact, pertinent to the finding of incompetency, WVA has not only demonstrated a need for this information but has demonstrated that it is entitled to the requested Notices (in full or redacted form) pursuant to the Public Records Law.” The decision stipulated that neither WVA nor any member of the public should be given guardianship case numbers or individuals’ birthdates, and left room for the circuit court to require additional redactions for privacy purposes.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker