Electionline Weekly October-10-2024

Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking

Luzerne County, Pennsylvania: The county council voted down a proposal this week that would have protected election workers. Councilwoman Joanna Bryn Smith proposed the election worker protection ordinance, saying it would provide an additional option for law enforcement to charge those accused of a range of alleged crimes against poll workers. Council Vice Chairman Brian Thornton said he condemns violence but spoke with county District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce and was informed the ordinance could be “inviting lawsuits” against the county because laws already exist at the state level. Thornton also read portions of an email from county Election Director Emily Cook, concluding the proposed ordinance is “ultimately a waste of time” because “there are no legitimate actionable offenses that were not already addressed as protections for these workers under the law.” Bryn Smith argued her ordinance is needed, particularly at a time when the county has placed boulders around the county’s Penn Place Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre for security purposes. Thornton suggested the council draft a resolution or proclamation condemning violence against election workers.

Legal Updates

Federal Litigation: The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission has asked a federal appeals court to expedite a hearing in a case that would determine if Americans can legally use derivatives contracts to bet on the outcomes of U.S. elections. The filing on the evening of October 2 came after the U.S. appeals court earlier that day blocked the CFTC’s effort to prohibit derivatives trading platform KalshiEX LLC from listing elections contracts, pending an appeal. A lower court had previously allowed Americans to place those bets. “The public’s interest lies with prompt disposition of this appeal,” the CFTC’s filing with the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit read. The agency argued that election contracts are susceptible to market manipulation, and that the contracts could create the perception that the integrity of elections is at risk. “[This] would put the CFTC in the position of investigating such activities in election markets, well outside of its traditional areas of responsibility,” it said. The agency has asked the court for oral arguments in early December and noted that Kalshi has previously indicated it will oppose the effort to fast-track the appeal. In dismissing an earlier motion by the CFTC to pause the D.C. District Court’s order allowing Kalshi to list and trade election contracts, the appeals court said the regulator failed to show how the agency or the public interest would be harmed by Kalshi’s “event” contracts, as it had argued.

Alabama: U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor rejected a state request to delay a ruling limiting the scope of a new state law criminalizing some forms of assistance with absentee ballots. In a 10-page filing, Proctor wrote that his Sept. 24 ruling — applied to the ability of blind, disabled and illiterate voters to choose people to assist them with applying for absentee voting — reflected the federal Voting Rights Act and took issue with the Alabama attorney general’s office’s characterization of his decision. “In reading Defendant’s Motion, one would think the court has enjoined Defendant from enforcing the entirety of Alabama Senate Bill 1 (‘SB 1’),” he wrote. “To the contrary, the court entered a limited injunction, which prohibits enforcement of SB 1 only to the extent that law is preempted by Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act (‘VRA’). Particularly in light of the tone of Defendant’s Motion, it is appropriate to put the court’s limited injunction into perspective.” Proctor’s rejection comes after the attorney general’s office filed a request October 2 that a court not issue a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit over the state’s efforts to remove some voters from the voter roll. In the 32-page filing, the state wrote that the plaintiffs challenging the removal misunderstood Secretary of State Wes Allen’s August news release to read it as proposing a systematic and untimely voter purge that targets naturalized citizens. “They were just wrong about the nature of the process, which they said would ‘immediately inactivate … and remove’ thousands of naturalized citizens,” they wrote. “…There’s a world of difference between that accusation and the reality hidden by the ellipsis: Secretary Allen instructed registrars to ‘inactivate and initiate steps necessary to remove all individuals who are not United States Citizens.”

Arizona: A conservative group run by one of former President Donald Trump’s top legal aides is suing Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for withholding the names of the 218,000 voters who have been improperly registered to vote because of a glitch in the state’s driver’s license database.vThe decades-long glitch, which was first discovered last month, resulted in some Arizonans who had gotten a driver’s license before 1996 being inaccurately labeled as having provided proof of citizenship, which is a requirement to register to vote in the Grand Canyon State. The error in the database used by the state’s Motor Vehicles Division affects people with pre-1996 licenses who had received replacements. They had been registered to vote for decades, but were never asked to prove their citizenship because of the “data coding oversight” in the system. America First Legal and Jennifer Wright, the former head of the Arizona attorney general’s Election Integrity Unit, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona, a nonprofit led by conservative activist Merissa Hamilton. According to the lawsuit, Hamilton’s group filed a records request after news of the issue broke seeking “a subset of the Statewide Voter Registration Database (VRDB) that contains only those registered (active and inactive) voters that” were part of the data glitch. A few days later, the Secretary of State’s Office responded saying that the records “will be made available for inspection at the soonest available time and to the extent the law allows access. But no access will occur before the 2024 General Election.” Fontes’ office said that releasing that information now “would create confusion, chaos, uncertainty and consternation among the public — all of which is avoidable, and indeed must be avoided amid an ongoing election during which we expect to receive record turnout.” The group is suing to make those records available before early voting begins on Oct. 9. “We are suing the state of Arizona for refusing to provide the list of 218,000 voters who failed or refused to establish citizenship. It is absolutely imperative that we stop the dire threat of illegal alien voting, which is the gravest form of foreign election interference,” Miller said in a press release about the lawsuit.

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Friday, affirming the Sept. 19 decision of a trial court that backers of Proposition 140 had gathered enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot, and that even if they hadn’t, the court could not legally order election officials to disregard votes for it. The ballot measure, known as the Make Arizona Elections Fair Act, would allow all registered voters to choose from all the candidates in the primary, regardless of their party affiliation, and the top vote-getters would advance to the general election, even if they don’t represent different parties. The goal of the campaign is to eliminate extreme partisan influence in elections. Opponents of the measure, including the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, challenged it in court, claiming that the campaign had gathered too many duplicate signatures, putting it beneath the threshold to make it on the ballot.

Arkansas: The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has issued a “stay pending appeal” of an Arkansas case involving a rule requiring an ink-on-paper signature on voter registration forms. The Appeals Court in September issued an administrative stay that allowed state officials to implement the “wet signature” rule while parties in a lawsuit over the regulation prepared court filings. On October 3, the appeals court converted the administrative stay into a stronger delay to give state officials time to prepare their appeal of a federal district judge’s preliminary injunction against the rule that limits the use of electronic signatures on voter registration forms.

Crittenden County election officials appealed to the Arkansas Supreme Court a circuit court order that required staffing an early voting location in West Memphis. The county Board of Election Commissioners voted 2-1 to appeal Circuit Court Judge Chris Thyer’s ruling that they should conduct early voting at one of three contested sites in West Memphis. He also asked attorneys on both sides to file an appeal so the high court could offer clarity on early voting statutory construction. Plaintiffs’ attorney Jennifer Standerfer said her clients were satisfied with at least one early voting location and would not take the case higher, but Republican election commissioners Frank Barton and Anita Bell voted to appeal Thyer’s order; Democratic member James Pulliaum voted against it. The appeal was filed Friday on behalf of the board by attorney Joe Rogers. The appeal only challenges the decision regarding early voting at Seventh Street Church of Christ in West Memphis, which Thyer found County Clerk Paula Brown appropriately designated under her authority.

Colorado: District Judge Matthew Barrett sentenced former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters nine years in prison for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race. “I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen,” Barrett told her in handing down the sentence. “You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan.” Jurors found Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access to the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that person’s identity. Before being sentenced, Peters insisted that everything she did to try to unroot what she believed was fraud was for the greater good. “I’ve never done anything with malice to break the law. I’ve only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County,” she told the court. “I’ve let you go on enough about this,” Judge Barrett said. “The votes are the votes.” Later, the judge noted that Peters has kept up public appearances in broadcasts to sympathetic audiences for her own benefit. “It’s just more lies. No objective person believes them. No, at the end of the day, you cared about the jets, the podcasts and people fawning over you,” Barrett said.

Connecticut: The Connecticut Supreme Court unanimously rejected a case filed by three Bridgeport voters seeking to force the arrests of two local political figures they accuse of election-law violations during last year’s Democratic mayoral primary in Bridgeport. The voters — Diahann Phillips, Alison Scofield and Albert Bottone — sought the arrests of Wanda Geter-Pataky, deputy head of the city’s Democratic Town Committee, and City Councilwoman Eneida Martinez based on accusations that they illegally had put absentee ballots in drop boxes to be counted. The three voters sought to challenge those conclusions through a legal mechanism known as a “writ of error,” which they filed with the state Appellate Court and the Supreme Court then transferred to its own docket. The Supreme Court did not consider the validity of Welch’s legal conclusions. Rather, it ruled that the three voters were not “aggrieved” by the judge’s denial of the arrest warrants “because they do not have a specific, personal, and legal interest in the arrest of those who allegedly violate election law,” according to the decision, written by Justice Gregory T. D’Auria. He quoted a past state Supreme Court decision explaining that such a personal legal interest is different from “a general interest that all members of the community share.”

Florida: U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle refused to extend the deadline to register to vote on Wednesday as Floridians braced for Hurricane Milton’s landfall while still grappling with Hurricane Helene’s aftermath. Hinkle that said allowing people to register to vote for the November election beyond Oct. 7 would overload supervisors of elections as they prepare for what could be “the most closely watched election.” The Florida chapters of the League of Women Voters and the NAACP wanted the court to order Gov. Ron DeSantis to reopen the voter registration process for at least 10 more days. The groups argued that Floridians obeying mandatory evacuation orders on Monday shouldn’t have to choose between their safety and their right to vote. DeSantis on Monday declined to extend the deadline because the hurricane hadn’t hit yet. Hinkle didn’t buy that argument, saying during the Wednesday afternoon emergency hearing in Tallahassee that people could have registered to vote online. “I hope it didn’t come off as insensitive. … If they had evacuated, they still could have registered while evacuating,” Hinkle said, noting that he didn’t think the online registration form would take more than five to 10 minutes to fill out.

Georgia: Civil rights groups sued Georgia on Monday in an effort to extend the state’s voter registration deadline by a week to account for residents who may not have been able to register in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which wreaked havoc in the state leading up to the deadline. The lawsuit filed in federal court by a coalition of civil rights groups argues that Hurricane Helene made landfall just days before the start of a critical week-long stretch before the October 7 deadline, when registration in the state typically spikes, disrupting that final batch of registrations. The group’s attorneys claim that the “massive and widespread disruptions and devastation” caused by Helene in the state “likely prevented tens of thousands of Georgia residents from timely registering to vote because they lacked internet access, could not travel, lacked access to postal services, or had no operational county election office.” They are seeking to extend the deadline until next Monday.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee threw out a case that claimed Georgia’s voting system was made vulnerable by the public disclosure of security features and computer code. McAfee dismissed the case because Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger complied with state law when he certified the Dominion voting system as “safe and practicable” before it went into use in 2020. “Although applicant may firmly believe that the secretary’s current processes are ‘nonsensical’ and ‘appalling,’ and good-faith concerns over how to better secure our elections should be taken seriously, this matter is currently one that must be deferred to the policymaking branches,” McAfee wrote in the dismissal. The GOP lawsuit argued that the encryption keys that protect passwords and other information for voting machines were revealed within election databases released by four Georgia counties in response to records requests. The Republican Party alleged that the Dominion voting system doesn’t meet federal standards and asked McAfee to order Raffensperger to take steps to meet those standards. Attorneys for the secretary of state’s office said the voting system has been certified both by the federal government and by Raffensperger himself.

The Cobb County Board of Elections has sued the Georgia State Election Board, challenging six of its recently passed rules. The suit, filed in the Fulton County Superior Court, seeks judgment on whether or not the half-dozen rules are within the State Election Board’s authority and/or are “unreasonable.” “The SEB’s Sept. 20 rules lack statutory authorization, conflict with and improperly expand provisions of the Election Code, impermissibly intrude on the exclusive authority of the Secretary of State and county superintendents, and neither promote uniformity nor are conducive to the fair, legal, and orderly conduct of elections,” the filing reads. “… The rules therefore exceed the SEB’s statutory authority and should be declared invalid.” The rules challenged by the Cobb Elections Board were passed by the State Election Board on Sept. 20 — less than two months from Election Day.

The Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registrations also filed a lawsuit in Superior Court to block the implementation of a new rule put in place by the Georgia State Election Board. The rule the Muscogee County Board opposes is the “Hand Count” rule. The rule states that after the polling place closes, and all votes have been cast, three sworn precinct polling officers will independently count the number of votes cast in each ballot box. They will not tabulate the vote totals for each candidate. The Muscogee County board alleges the new voting rule implemented by the state board contradicts Georgia law, leaving the board in a state of legal uncertainty saying, “Compliance with the Hand Counting Rule runs contrary to O.C.G.A ss 21-2-420, which requires that after completing the required accounting and related documentation for a precinct, ‘the poll manager and at least one assistance manager shall… immediately deliver all required documentation and election materials to the election superintendent.’” In addition to claiming the rule contradicts Georgia law, the Muscogee Board says hand counting the ballots would delay election results and increase voter distrust. “Hand-counting also introduces more possibilities for human error, which creates opportunities for misinformation about the certainty of election results,” the petition reads. The Muscogee County Board also claims the Hand Count Rule would cause unnecessary expenditures as it would require new training for poll workers and require those workers to do more work.

The Republican National Committee — along with the Georgia Republican Party and Fulton County Republican Party — filed a lawsuit accusing Fulton County, Georgia election officials of not hiring enough Republican poll workers for the upcoming election. According to the lawsuit, which names Nadine Williams— the Director of Fulton County Department of Registration and Elections — as the defendant, only nine of 45 qualified Republican poll workers were allegedly hired to work during the early voting period. And only six out of 62 qualified Republican poll workers were hired to work on Election Day. The lawsuit also alleges that Williams violated state law by not directly hiring poll workers from a list of qualified candidates submitted to her, instead delegating the duty to temp agencies and the managers of individual polling locations. The lawsuit asks the court to order Williams to hire Republican poll workers from the lists provided to her, or submit written statements to each poll worker on the list explaining why they can’t be hired.

Michigan: Four St. Clair Shores voters who allegedly cast two separate ballots in the August primary are facing felony charges. The alleged double voting was the result of voters casting both absentee and in-person ballots during the primary on Aug. 6. It was caught shortly afterward by voting officials and investigated by local police before Macomb County prosecutor Peter Lucido ultimately declined to prosecute. But Attorney General Dana Nessel announced felony charges against those voters, as well as three St. Clair Shores assistant clerks, after her office conducted another investigation into the double votes. The four voters are accused of two separate felonies: one count of voting absentee and in person, and one count of offering to vote more than once. The combined maximum penalty for those violations is nine years in prison. Three assistant clerks also face felony charges. Patricia Guciardo and Emily McClintock are both charged with the same felonies as the voters, as well as an additional count of falsifying election returns or records, which has a maximum sentence of five years. The third, Molly Brasure, faces two counts of falsifying election records and two counts each of voting absentee and in person, and offering to vote more than once.

Nevada: Democrats are seeking to dismiss a GOP lawsuit that alleged Nevada officials have failed to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls, calling them “recycled allegations” from four years ago based on “no actual evidence.” In a motion filed Friday on behalf of the Democratic National Committee and Nevada Democratic Party, a Carson City judge was asked to toss out the Republican lawsuit from mid-September. It argues the state already has a robust process for ensuring noncitizens do not vote (which is illegal nationwide) and accuses Republicans of seeking a “drastic change” in the home stretch of the election cycle that is not allowed under federal laws. The lawsuit, filed by former President Donald Trump’s campaign along with the Nevada GOP and Republican National Committee, accused state election officials of not adopting regulations to verify that people on the voter rolls are citizens and that the state has not systematically removed noncitizens from the voter rolls. It says this disadvantages Republicans, and calls for the judge to require officials to conduct systematic voter roll maintenance ahead of the November election. The lawsuit was the fourth filed by national Republican organizations this year in Nevada, and all other three have either been dismissed or denied but are in various stages of appeal. Republicans have said these lawsuits are necessary to bolster trust in elections, but Democrats argue the suits are destined to fail and are simply a ploy to diminish trust in elections.

New Mexico: Santa Fe District Court Judge Kathleen McGarry Etlenwood has ordered two state agencies to work together to ensure roughly 11,000 formerly incarcerated New Mexicans can vote in next month’s election if they want. The order came in response to a lawsuit filed in late September alleging the voting rights of up to 11,000 individuals were in jeopardy this year, a violation of a 2023 law that allows people incarcerated on felony crimes to vote once they had been released, even if they are still on probation or parole. The order, issued by Etlenwood, also created a process by which the state’s 33 county clerks can confirm through a 24-hour hotline whether people convicted of felonies who’ve registered to vote online or through the mail are no longer behind bars.The New Mexico Corrections Department was not regularly communicating who was currently in its prisons to the Secretary of State, who in turn was forced “to rely on outdated and inaccurate information,” according to the lawsuit. The end result: the Secretary of State was improperly flagging individuals who were, according to the 2023 law, eligible to vote. The order provides a short-term fix, ensuring those New Mexicans potentially disenfranchised can vote in next month’s election, said Santa Fe attorney Daniel Yohalem, who along with Washington-based Campaign Legal Center and the group Millions for Prisoners New Mexico, sued the state.

North Carolina: The Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a new lawsuit against the North Carolina State Election Board, alleging officials are illegally permitting overseas voters who don’t reside in the state to participate in its elections. The complaint filed by the RNC and North Carolina Republican Party takes issue with how the board is applying North Carolina’s Uniform Military and Overseas Voters Act (UMOVA), which allows for military members and U.S. citizens living abroad to vote in state and federal elections. The lawsuit alleges the state election board is incorrectly using state and federal law to extend voter qualifications to people living abroad who aren’t residents. It says the state election board’s guidance to county election officials advises that voters who never resided in North Carolina but are attempting to register to vote in the state are exempt from the HAVA requirement. Republicans are asking a state court to declare that the North Carolina election board’s application of the law conflicts with how the state constitution defines eligible voters and is therefore unconstitutional. They also want the court to void the guidance issued to clerks in September and block the board from accepting voter registration forms from individuals who don’t have the proper HAVA requirements. The plaintiffs want the election board to instruct county clerks to not process ballots returned by voters who never lived in the state.

Pennsylvania: In a pair of decisions published Saturday evening the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied requests to resolve questions about the commonwealth’s vote-by-mail law in the final few weeks before the Nov. 5 presidential election. Dismissing a request by the voting rights groups to block the enforcement of a rule requiring mail-in ballots to bear a handwritten date on the return envelope, the Supreme Court said the risk of confusing voters with a change in voting rules was too great. “This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election,” the unsigned order said. Chief Justice Debra Todd filed a dissenting statement in which she argued that voters and election officials need guidance in the upcoming election. “We ought to resolve this important constitutional question now, before ballots may be improperly rejected and voters disenfranchised,” Todd said. The court also rejected a request by the Republican National Committee and the Republican Party of Pennsylvania to stop county election officials from allowing voters to remedy mistakes on their mail-in ballots that would cause them to be disqualified.

In other state Supreme Court news, the court has agreed to hear a consolidated appeal of rulings in two Lycoming County cases over right-to-know requests that originated after the 2020 presidential election. The state’s highest court Monday also granted the request of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the Pennsylvania Republican Party to file a friend of the court brief on behalf of the plaintiffs.

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it would not hear an appeal by members of the Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus in a challenge of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s order implementing automatic voter registration in the commonwealth. Members of the Freedom Caucus led by state Rep. Dawn Keefer (R-York) asked the court to intercede in the case before the Philadelphia-based U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case, which also challenged an executive order by President Joe Biden directing federal agencies to work with third-party organizations to improve ballot access across the country. The high court’s decision sets the stage for arguments before the 3rd Circuit in December, after the Nov. 5 presidential election, in a case that would clarify which branches of government have the power to make election law under the U.S. Constitution, attorney Erick G. Kaardal said.

The Republican National Committee’s request for a “petition for a special and preliminary injunction” against the Montgomery County Board of Elections has been withdrawn, according to a court order issued Monday. Attorneys were scheduled to appear at 9:30 a.m. Monday before Judge Richard Haaz inside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, but the hearing was canceled. Based on a series of stipulations reached between the parties to the suit, plaintiffs Republican National Committee, Montgomery County Republican Committee Chairman Christian Nascimento and Republican Senate candidate Dave McCormick withdrew the petition for a special and preliminary injunction, court documents state. The petitioners filed a civil complaint in court last month, accusing Montgomery County election officials of sending out mail-in ballots prior to wrapping up “logic and accuracy testing,” which is mandated by a Pennsylvania Department of State directive to ensure the functioning of equipment and systems ahead of an election.

South Carolina: Circuit Court Judge Daniel Coble agreed to grant a motion for a temporary injunction and extend the state’s voter registration deadlines by 10 days as many residents still are without power and crews work to clear debris from roads and homes. Residents now have until Monday, Oct. 14 to register in person, online, fax and email or by mail to vote in the Nov. 5 election. The emergency hearing request was brought by the South Carolina Democratic Party late Thursday. The party was represented by Charleston attorney Richard Hricik. “Your honor, this is on behalf of all voters in South Carolina, and to ensure everyone has the right to vote,” Hricik said in a virtual hearing Friday morning. “We did not want to ask for a deadline that would unduly burden the state resources or otherwise.” Gov. Henry McMaster, state Attorney General Alan Wilson and S.C. House and Senate leaders were notified ahead of the hearing, the State Election Commission told Coble Friday. None of the parties voiced opposition to the request or took a position, they said.

Texas: Dallas County Judge Rachel Craig ordered an additional early voting site be established in Rowlett amid an intense battle between the city and Freedom Place Church. Craig granted a temporary restraining order and ordered the Rowlett Community Centre as an alternate early voting polling location. The community center has previously been a site for early voting in the city; however, this year, Freedom Place Church was selected. The petition was filed Tuesday morning by Kyle Pugh, with the law firm C. Kyle Pugh, PC, on behalf of Robert Margolis, Senior Citizens of Rowlett, Michael Britt and Barbara Britt “seeking to enforce the Texas Elections Code,” in regards to the voting location. “Rowlett Community Centre has an abundance of parking, they have an abundance of ADA compliant parking, they have greater infrastructure to accommodate the citizens of Rowlett when they vote in this critical election,” Pugh said Tuesday. Margolis previously told CBS News Texas he was worried about his resident’s access to the polls with the church being a smaller location with only 11 parking spaces.

Virginia: The Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging ” the state’s policy of illegally and systematically removing voters from the rolls.” According to a statement from the League of Women Voters, the policy regarding the removal of voters from the registration list is at the core of the lawsuit. The suit is in response to an August Executive Order from Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed in which he said increased election security by approving actions like “best-in-the-nation voter list maintenance.” Youngkin’s executive order required the Department of Elections to send a notice to individuals whose names could be removed from the roles, but that one notice isn’t enough, the statement says–especially since they say there is no requirement to confirm the accuracy of the DMV info the notice relies upon. “Individual voters have less than 14 days to respond to the notice in order to avoid removal — a burden that falls disproportionately on naturalized US citizens,” the League of Women Voters said.

Wisconsin: Chief U.S. District Judge James Peterson for Wisconsin’s Western District ordered the Rusk County Town of Thornapple to resume using electronic voting machines after the town’s board switched to hand-counting paper ballots in two elections this year. The order says the town violated federal law aimed at making voting easier for people with disabilities. The preliminary injunction states that the town’s clerk and three-member board of supervisors violated the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, by failing to provide at least one “voting system equipped for individuals with disabilities” at its single polling place in the April 2 and Aug. 13 elections. According to court documents, the town’s former clerk Suzanne Pinnow cited “the controversial nature of electronic voting machines” during a June 2023 town board meeting as part of the justification for moving to hand-counted, paper ballots. Meeting minutes show she also claims that municipalities with “less than 7,000 voters” are “not required” to use the voting machines. The injunction stems from a joint agreement between U.S. investigators and Thornapple officials in which the town agreed to provide one electronic voting machine at the town’s sole polling place, and that the “voting system is, for the full period that the polling place is required to be open under Wisconsin State law, plugged into a functioning electrical outlet, turned on, and readily visible and accessible to voters.” The town has also agreed to not enforce its June 2023 resolution “to stop use of the electronic voting machine,” post signs alerting voters that the voting machine is available for use and allow representatives of the U.S. Department of Justice to ensure the court’s order is being followed during the Nov. 5 election.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker