Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking
Florida: Rep. Michele Rayner (D-Tampa Bay) has introduced HB 727, titled the “Public Resource Election Neutrality Act,” would ban any state department or agency from producing, disseminating, or funding any public service announcement (PSA) related to a statewide ballot initiative. The Florida Commission on Ethics “may” investigate complaints of violations of the law. All state agencies would also have to maintain records of PSAs produced or funded during the 12 months preceding a general election and make the records available to the public. Meanwhile, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) appears intent on pushing legislation that would make it harder for citizen-led initiatives to get on the statewide ballot by placing restrictions on how the signature petition process works. The Florida Department of State produced a report last fall alleging that the group behind Amendment 4, Floridians Protecting Freedom, was guilty of “widespread election fraud,” and was slapped with a $328,000 fine that the group ultimately paid. “The petition fraud, and making sure that that is reformed so that this process doesn’t run amok, is something that’s very important,” DeSantis said at a press conference in Tallahassee on Wednesday. “I absolutely think you’ll see the speaker and the president of the senate work towards enacting really strong reforms in that respect, I do think that that’s something that’s very important. We gotta get that done.” Meanwhile, Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D) also filed a bill on Wednesday that would reduce the threshold to pass constitutional amendments in Florida from 60% to 50%.
Bradenton Beach, Florida: City commissioners have approved a resolution urging the Florida Legislature to provide a public records exemption protecting the personal information of municipal clerks and employees who perform election work. “This is being asked of all the cities to adopt by the Institute of Municipal Clerks,” City Clerk Terri Sanclemente said at a Feb. 20 city commission meeting. “There have been too many attacks on clerks and others who have to deal with elections. And that is why they’re asking each city in Florida to adopt this resolution so that they can take it to the Legislature and ask for changes.” Commissioner Deborah Scaccianoce clarified that the exemption protects clerks’ personal information such as addresses and telephone numbers. “Public officials are very often attacked and they’re attacked at their homes and this protects them, their home, their children and family members from being physically attacked and emotionally attacked and harassed,” Scaccianoce said. “Just like police officers and firemen. They just want to add clerks to that and election workers.” The resolution will go into effect if the Legislature passes a parallel law.
Idaho: A bill that sought to end no-excuse absentee voting for most Idahoans failed to advance out of the Idaho Legislature’s House State Affairs Committee this week. House Bill 139 isn’t officially dead. But the bill failed to advance after separate motions – one to advance the bill and another to hold the bill – both failed on rare tie votes. Idaho currently allows no-excuse absentee voting, which means any registered voter can request and cast an absentee ballot for any reason. About 15% of Idaho voters vote by absentee ballot, Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane said. During the most recent 2024 general election, 182,000 Idahoans voted by absentee ballot, McGrane said. Under House Bill 139, Idahoans would only be able to vote by absentee ballot if they were 65 or older, serving in the armed forces, serving a religious mission, have an illness, disability or hospitalization, have to work or attend university, are occupying a second home outside of the county where they are registered to vote, or if they live in a precinct that only allows mailed ballots. Rep. Joe Alfieri, R-Coeur d’Alene, sponsored the bill.
Indiana: Senators killed two election proposals and significantly scaled back a third after letting the trio languish on the chamber’s daily calendar for more than two weeks. Legislation slashing early in-person voting days and closing primary elections to unaffiliated voters garnered mixed committee testimony in early February before moving to the Senate for consideration. But both died quietly on Wednesday when their authors declined to call them down before a key deadline. Numerous amendments had been filed on both of the bills. Hoosier voters can currently cast ballots in person for 28 days ahead of elections. Sen. Gary Byrne’s Senate Bill 284 would’ve cut that timeframe to two weeks. Senate Bill 201 would have added text to voter registration forms asking Hoosiers to choose their political parties and warning that affiliation is required to vote in a primary election. It also would’ve required county election officials to affiliate registered voters with either the Democratic or Republican Party based on their last primary election votes, and would’ve created a way for voters to change their affiliations. Legislation moving municipal elections to the same even-numbered years as presidential elections got major edits Wednesday. Senators accepted an amendment limiting Senate Bill 355‘s changes to towns — minus the 200-person town of Vernon. Legislative bodies for towns of more than 10,000 residents could vote to opt out and keep their elections on odd-numbered years, while city councils could vote to opt into the change.
Kansas: Lawmakers are considering a bill that would consolidate special elections, requiring all of them to be held on the first Tuesday in March. The aim is to reduce costs and simplify scheduling. Senate Bill 273, currently under consideration, has garnered support from local officials, including Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Laura Rainwater, who says consolidating elections would save both time and money. If passed, the bill would eliminate the need for separate special elections throughout the year and instead set a single date for all future special elections. Opponents of the bill argue that consolidating elections could limit local control, particularly for school districts and municipalities, by forcing them to wait for the next available election date if urgent issues arise. Supporters believe the bill will reduce election-related expenses and create a more predictable voting schedule, but the debate continues as the bill moves through the legislature. SB 273 could take effect next year if passed.
Michigan Ballot Measure: A new ballot initiative is in the works to bring ranked-choice voting to Michigan., The grassroots group, which labels itself nonpartisan, plans to start circulating petitions in May, aiming to collect over 611,000 signatures in 180 days to put a constitutional amendment before Michigan voters in 2026. Exact details haven’t been released yet, but the proposal is expected to make the state switch to using ranked-choice voting for various state and federal offices and let municipalities implement ranked-choice voting locally if they want for local races, Christian Potts, an organizer with Rank MI Vote said. “Five cities in the state of Michigan have already passed ranked-choice voting reforms: Ann Arbor, Royal Oak, East Lansing, Kalamazoo and Ferndale,” he said. “Ferndale has had it on the books for 21 years now, hasn’t been able to use it. Our amendment immediately will allow those cities to start using it, and then any other city that wants to use it as well.” Rank MI Vote is expected to announce more details about its initiative in the coming weeks, but Potts said in general they’re looking to apply ranked-choice voting to races such as state House and Senate, governor, secretary of state, attorney general, Congress and president.
Minnesota: Rep. Jim Nash (R-Waconia) is sponsoring HF931, which would require a statement on any mailing sent on behalf of a committee or private organization that includes an absentee ballot application or a sample ballot. The statement must clarify that it’s not an official government communication, that the application or sample ballot hasn’t been included at the request of a government official and that a sample ballot isn’t an official ballot that can be cast by the voter. The House Elections Finance and Government Operations Committee approved the bill on a voice vote Wednesday and sent it to the House Floor. The different mailings often result in confusion and sometimes anger among voters, according to Michael Stalberger, the elections administrator for Blue Earth County. County election workers are often overwhelmed with calls and questions during elections – their busiest time of the year. “This is really rooted in the idea of making it very, very clear that the thing you’re getting in the mail is just a request from an organization that can send these out to make sure you’re getting your absentee ballot,” Nash said.
Missouri: Sen. Jamie Burger, R-Benton has introduced a bill that would create the offense of tampering with an election official. Tampering includes such things as harassment, intimidation, attempting to influence or pressure, and spreading personal information of the election official or their family. Burger said his bill is about protecting poll workers. “I think that we have to make sure that poll workers are protected,” he told Missourinet. “There’s so many people that get aggravated when they come to vote at a certain precinct or polling place and find out that the polling place has been moved. They no longer can vote there, and they just get agitated.” Burger said that he’s heard from county clerks concerned about poll worker retention. Under the bill, being charged with tampering with an election official could land suspects up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $10,000.
Nebraska: About 50 percent of Douglas County voters choose to vote by mail, and on average, 75 percent of all ballots are returned in secure drop boxes located across the county. Election Commissioner Brian Kruse told members of the Douglas County Board that, if passed, LB 541 would change the way Nebraskans vote, eliminating online voter registration, restricting registration by mail, and requiring voters to give a reason for voting early. “There’s only three state in the nation where you have to have an excuse [to vote early]: Alabama, Mississippi and New Hampshire,” Kruse said. “And Mississippi has some legislation now to eliminate that. I also think it’s worth pointing out that both major candidates from both political parties for president not only embraces early voting, but ran campaigns that they spent millions on to get their voters out to vote early across the nation.” Kruse also mentioned that reducing the number of early voting days like LB 541 suggests is basically an unfunded mandate. “If we were to move from 35 [days] to 22, you have to do the same amount of work in a lot less days,” Kruse said. “We estimate that for last fall’s election, we would have had to hire 22 additional employees. It would have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Other provisions in the bill would require hand-counting of ballots to combat voter fraud, which Kruse says is not a serious problem in Nebraska. “I think the bottom-line to this bill is what problems we are solving, and I don’t think there’s any question that its taking a lot of rights away from voters,” Kruse said.
Nevada: A proposal being considered in the Nevada Legislature that calls for election workers to be charged with a felony for failing to perform tasks in a timely manner has received pushback from those staffers tasked with running elections. Senate Bill 100 comes from state Sen. Skip Daly, a Washoe County Democrat, who told the Sun he was working with counties and city clerks to answer concerns they expressed during a hearing late Tuesday for the proposal. The feedback, he says, could be used in retooling the bill. “They weren’t really coming in and saying, ‘This is 100% horrible, and it’s just a power grab’ and all that stuff,” Daly told the Sun. “They’re saying, ‘Hey, if you’re going to do this, these are our concerns, and can we clear some of those issues up?’ So, we want to work with them on that bill.” Nevada law mandates that any officer or other person tasked with election responsibilities who “willfully neglects” their duty or “willfully performs” it in a way that works against state laws is guilty of a category E felony and eligible for one to four years in prison. Daly’s legislation would expand that definition and make it so that a person with election responsibilities who fails to perform their tasks “in a timely manner by the applicable deadline” is also eligible for a felony charge. Daly called his legislation “an accountability measure,” inspired by two instances in Washoe County where he said the county was at risk of not timely processing the necessary steps to complete the 2024 election. The proposal calls for county or city election officials to notify the secretary of state and attorney general if they cannot perform their obligation by mandated deadlines. The bill would allow for the individual to be relieved from their duties if the secretary of state chooses to petition the district court.
Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) is proposing a bill to add ballot drop boxes across the state between the end of early voting and Election Day — a three-day period during which most other voting opportunities available to Nevadans are unavailable. The proposal, expected to be formally introduced this week, would require the addition of at least 10 drop boxes in Clark County and five in Washoe County, as well as give rural counties the opportunity to add, but not mandate, additional ballot drop boxes after the end of the state’s two-week early voting period. In a statement, Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar told The Indy that he supported the legislation for its potential to decrease the logjam of ballots received on Election Day.
New Jersey: The Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill to extend in-person early voting from three days to seven days of voting. State Sen. Brian P. Stack (D-Union City), an early-voting aficionado, sponsored the legislation. Early voting in New Jersey took off in 2024, with 1,172,842 early votes cast at polling locations before Election Day; 27% of all votes cast were early, in-person. That number eclipsed the 860,586 vote-by-mail ballots. New Jerseyans cast 50.3% of the votes on November 5 in an election that produced a 64.7% turnout. The bill appropriates $6 million to extend early voting. An earlier version of the bill would have extended early voting to 10 days, but it was amended Feb. 20.
New Mexico: A proposed amendment to the New Mexico Constitution that would extend the right to vote to people incarcerated in state prisons passed its first legislative hurdle on Wednesday. The House Government, Elections and Indian Affairs Committee voted 5-3 along party lines in favor of House Joint Resolution 10, with Republicans in opposition. HJR 10 would ask New Mexico voters to amend the State Constitution to remove criminal conviction for a felony as a constitutional restriction on eligibility to register to vote. Sponsor Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero (D-Albuquerque) said HJR10 would affirm New Mexicans’ right to participate in democracy. Her expert witness, Selinda Guerrero with Millions for Prisoners New Mexico, said HJR 10 would fulfill the promise of the 15th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits the denial of the right to vote based on race, color or previous condition of servitude.
North Dakota: Two bills that would have reshaped how candidates get on the North Dakota ballot failed in the House this week. House Bill 1446, sponsored by Rep. Mike Nathe, R-Bismarck, would have eliminated the option of getting on the ballot through a political endorsement. Instead, candidates for statewide and legislative offices would be required to gather signatures to get on the primary or general election ballot. Currently, candidates can get on the ballot through either a political endorsement or by gathering signatures. However, several incumbent lawmakers skipped district endorsing conventions last year, citing concerns about the process. And two candidates endorsed at the Republican Party state convention went on to lose in the primary. Under the proposal, legislative candidates would be required to obtain signatures for 1% of the district’s total population, about 167, while statewide office holders would need to acquire 2,000 signatures. Nathe’s bill failed on a 58-32 vote. House Bill 1424, sponsored by Koppelman, would have required candidates to obtain a political party’s endorsement. Candidates who submit signatures to get on the ballot could not have a political party next to their name. Koppelman’s bill failed on an 86-3 vote. Senate Bill 2252, sponsored by Sen. Chuck Walen, R-New Town, also would have prohibited ballot access to the primary election for candidates not endorsed by a political party. Walen’s bill failed on the Senate floor Monday on a 41-6 vote.
Ohio: The latest version of House Bill 54, the biennial transportation budget includes a provision making voter registration at Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles offices more stringent by requiring proof of U.S. citizenship. Ohio residents can register to vote in-person at BMV registrars—in addition to county boards of elections, public libraries and other public agency offices. In 2023, BMVs statewide registered more than 190,000 new voters, according to agency data. Senate President Rob McColley (R-Napoleon) said Wednesday he would back the idea because he believes “even one case of voter fraud is too many.” Voting rights advocates, alongside some Democrats, have been opponents before of similar proof of citizenship mandates that started materializing last year. As amended, HB 54 proposes requiring further data sharing between the BMV and Secretary of State Frank LaRose, too, so LaRose’s office could check the voter rolls with BMV statewide statistics monthly rather than annually for noncitizens. Voter fraud is rare, and in Ohio, noncitizens can’t vote legally. Ohioans reaffirmed that in 2022 when they ratified Issue 2, a statewide ballot measure that codified a ban on noncitizen participation in local elections. The House Finance Committee voted unanimously this week to forward the spending plan for maintaining what Ohio has and building out what it does not to the full House. The unanimous vote reflected, in part, the removal of controversial language that would have required Bureau of Motor Vehicles registrars to demand proof of citizenship of their customers before offering them the chance to register to vote. Instead, the language simply prohibits registrars from making that offer when they can see in their own records that the customer is not a citizen.
Oklahoma: A series of bills that would alter voting procedures have advanced in Oklahoma’s legislative process. Since the start of the legislative session on Feb. 3, the House Elections and Ethics Committee has taken action on various bills, moving them onto oversight committees. House Bill 1515, by Rep. Molly Jenkins, R-Coyle, eked out of the committee by a 4-3 vote. If passed into law, it would require voters casting their ballots through the mail to state a reason why they could not vote in person, whether that be during early voting or on election day. House Bill 1010, also by Jenkins, advanced out of the committee by a vote of 5-1. The bill seeks to dissuade state party delegates from selecting a presidential candidate other than the winner of the state’s primary election. If passed, it would require the Secretary of the State Election Board to calculate the cost of including the primary-winning candidate on the ballot and then charge that amount to a state party that did not nominate said candidate. House Bill 1007, by Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, passed the Government Oversight Committee on a 5-1 vote. It bars the use of student IDs as identification when voting. When introducing his bill to the committee, Olsen said university students can obtain IDs without being U.S. citizens. He worries that allowing the use of school IDs to vote would lead to noncitizen voting. He said that he wasn’t aware of any prior instances of voter fraud related to student IDs but that he feels Oklahomans would welcome measures designed to prevent this from happening in the future. House Bill 2191 by Reps. Max Wolfley, R-OKC, and Eric Roberts, R-OKC, also sailed through the committee on a 5-1 vote. It would require notaries who have been approved to notarize more than 20 mail-in ballots for any given election to submit their logs for those elections. It would charge a $500 fine to those who did not, as well as suspend their notary appointment for eight years. The same penalties would apply to notaries who exceeded the ballot limit. Although the limit on notarizing mail-in ballots has been in place for over a decade, notaries have not been required to turn in logs before. House Bill 2106, by Reps. Mike Osburn, R-Edmond, and Dell Kirbs, R-Shawnee, would alter Oklahoma’s election schedule so that there are only five elections in any given year. For the 2025 calendar year, Oklahoma currently has one election scheduled per month, a total of twelve. The bill once again passed through the committee on a 5-1 vote.
South Carolina: Rep. Weston Newton (R- District 120) has introduced election reform legislation. Under Newton’s bill, the State Election Commission would be in charge of managing third-party voter registration groups and would have the ability to fine organizations if they do not follow proper voter registration deadlines and rules. The bill also increases the penalties for someone being dishonest and filling out another person’s voter registration form. The punishment is currently a misdemeanor with a maximum of three years in prison. “Would this make it tougher or potentially discourage those civically engaged 18- and 19-year-old citizens we have that may be in a fraternity or sorority on their college campus from actually getting excited about. .. pushing their colleagues in college to vote and is in is that a good or a bad thing if it discourages,” Rep. Justin Bamberg (D- District 90) said.
South Dakota: Senate Bill 164 targets a narrow class of deepfakes, a term tied to phony images, audio or video of a person that are manipulated, typically with artificial intelligence programs, to appear real. The bill would require labels on deepfakes depicting candidates that appear within 90 days of an election “with the intent to injure” the depicted candidate. People who disseminate or contract with another to disseminate such an unlabeled deepfake within the 90-day window would be subject to a class one misdemeanor, which carries up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. They could also be subject to civil liability. The law would apply to the person or people who make deepfakes to deceive. It wouldn’t apply to satire deepfakes, or to broadcasters and websites paid to run deepfakes, or to internet service providers that might host them. The bill’s sponsor, Sioux Falls Democratic Sen. Liz Larson, told the Senate State Affairs Committee that political deepfakes created with artificial intelligence “can erode public trust in the information that circulates about our democracy.” Support for the bill came from Stephen Gemar of Attorney General Marty Jackley’s office, as well as from Zebadiah Johnson of the Voter Defense Association. “Our system of electoral democracy depends on having a shared reality,” Johnson said, adding, “deepfakes pose a real and substantial threat to that shared reality.”
Utah: A bill that originally would have drastically restricted voting by mail in Utah got a makeover after House and Senate legislative leaders struck a compromise — then it quickly cleared another major legislative hurdle. The House voted 57-15 to pass a revamped HB300. It now goes to the Senate for further consideration. Now, under a new version of the bill adopted right before the House’s vote, HB300 would require Utah voters to write the last four digits of their government-issued identification card (like a driver license or another state ID) on their ballot’s return envelope. Currently, Utah automatically sends all active registered voters ballots through the mail. The previous version of HB300 would have limited that dramatically by requiring voters to apply for permission to vote by mail. Unless they received that permission, most voters would have been required to drop their ballots off in-person at a polling place or at a drop box manned by at least two poll workers — where they would need to show their ID. Now, HB300 does not include those requirements for ballots to be dropped off in person. Instead, the bill requires clerks to use state ID numbers to confirm identities of voters who vote using a by-mail ballot — in addition to signature verification, which clerks currently use to verify by-mail voter identities. The bill now also takes a slower approach to moving away from automatically allowing all registered voters to receive by-mail ballots. The new version of HB300 would require voters to opt in to receiving a ballot by mail — but not until Jan. 1, 2028. But after they opt in, they would be able to continue receiving by-mail ballots for eight years, as long as they continue to be an active voter. The new version of HB300 now also allows voters to opt in to voting by mail while applying for or renewing their driver’s license or state ID card. The new bill would also allow Utahns who are older than 18, have not been issued a Utah driver license, and are “indigent” to receive a state ID card free of charge if they’re eligible to register to vote. There are still some provisions of the previous version of HB300 in the bill, including tightening up which by-mail ballots clerks would be able to count in the election. Currently, Utah law requires by-mail ballots to be counted as long as they’re postmarked the day before Election Day and received before the canvass. But if HB300 passes, it would require ballots to be received by an election officer on or before 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Lawmakers made it harder for political candidates to use a nickname on a ballot after Lucifer “Justin Case” Everylove qualified as a presidential candidate on last year’s state ballot. SB54 requires candidates to jump through some extra hoops if they want to use a middle name or a nickname on a ballot to ensure the candidate actually goes by the name. It passed the Utah House 65-2 and awaits action from the governor. The bill requires county clerks to include a candidate’s legal first name followed by their surname. It allows nicknames before or after a candidate’s legal first name or middle name or in place of their first name, but only if the candidate submits a signed affidavit, under penalty of perjury, that “the candidate is generally known by acquaintances in the candidate’s county of residence by the nickname … and is not using the nickname to gain an advantage on the ballot.” The candidate must also submit a similar affidavit sworn to by five residents of the candidate’s county, saying they do go by the nickname. A nickname can only be added to the ballot if election officials determine it: Does not imply that the candidate is an individual other than the candidate, regardless of whether the individual is living or deceased.; Does not constitute a slogan; Does not associate the candidate with an economic, religious, political or other group, issue or opinion; is not offensive, profane or spurious; and is not a title, rank, degree, certification, job description or similar designation.” Candidates would not need to go through the same affidavit process if the nickname they hope to use is a common derivative of their legal first or middle name.
Washington: Senate Bill 5014 seeks to bolster the security of Washington’s electoral process by expanding the Secretary of State’s oversight of election equipment and platforms. If passed, the bill would also mandate the disclosure of security breaches and set cybersecurity requirements for county election officers. “These changes are crucial to ensuring the integrity and trustworthiness of our electoral process,” Boehnke said. Washington already has several election-security measures in place, including voter-verification laws and post-election audits. Boehnke described the bill as a bipartisan effort to provide counties with more resources and state-level oversight to combat threats and ensure election accuracy. “This is a good bipartisan bill that shows a strong collaborative effort,” Boehnke stated. The legislation passed with a 49-0 vote in the Senate and now moves to the House of Representatives for further consideration.
West Virginia: The House of Delegates is trying once again to prevent potential abuse of absentee ballots by making it illegal to distribute more than 10 applications for absentee ballots with a specific request by a voter or voters. And a bill to prohibit ranked choice voting began its committee journey this week. This year’s attempt is HB 2400, approved in a divided voice vote on Monday morning by the Judiciary Committee and sent to the House floor. The revised version the committee approved wasn’t available to view on Monday afternoon, but the committee attorney said it reflected the 2022 version, which was HB 4293, that passed out of the House and died in the Senate. HB 4293 said that any election official who knowingly and intentionally mailed or delivered an application for an absentee ballot to any voter without the specific request of that voter would face a misdemeanor charge, subject to fine and jail time upon conviction. It also said that any person who is not an election official knowingly and intentionally mailed or delivered more than 10 applications for an absentee ballot to a group of voters without the specific request of those voters would also face a misdemeanor charge, subject to fine and jail time upon conviction. HB 2400 adds that applications shall be available in either physical form at the clerk’s office or online.
Judiciary’s Legal Services Subcommittee took a first look at HB 2683, to prohibit ranked choice voting. It gives a ling definition: “Ranked choice voting is defined as a method for casting and tabulating votes in which voters rank candidates for an office in order of preference, and then tabulation occurs in rounds, with each round dropping the candidate with the least support and then reallocating the first-place votes from the eliminated candidate to the second choice candidates.” The bill makes this illegal for any local state or federal election, and any such election conducted in this manner would be invalid. It does not apply to internal party processes.
Wyoming: The Legislature approved the final version of a bill this week that will more clearly delineate non-U.S. Citizen status on Wyoming driver’s licenses and IDs by printing notifications on the back of the cards. Senate File 33 creates a new driver’s license and state ID for those who are in the country legally but are not a U.S. citizen. The current disclaimer on state ID cards and licenses reads “NR” for non-resident and is listed on the front of the cards. The new cards, if approved by Gov. Mark Gordon, will state “Not A U.S. citizen.” The purpose of the bill is to make it abundantly clear to election judges when a non-U.S. citizen is attempting to vote and for law enforcement officers when they encounter one of these individuals. It’s one of a dozen bills brought in this year’s Legislature as an attempt to curb illegal immigration. SF 33 adds a much larger disclaimer to Wyoming’s non-citizen IDs that the person on the cards is not a U.S. citizen. Kolb’s irritation is that this disclaimer, at least initially, will be located on the back of the cards. Taylor Rossetti, deputy director and support services administrator for the Wyoming Department of Transportation, said although it wouldn’t be impossible to put this disclaimer on the front of the cards, the most logical place for it to go would be on the back so it’s clear for all election officials and not hidden by other text. The bill does not state that WYDOT has to put the disclaimer on the front of the cards or in color. A total of $67,000 has been budgeted to create the new cards.
Legal Updates
Arizona: The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that two Arizona laws that restrict voting by people who don’t prove their U.S. citizenship are “unlawful measures of voter suppression.…” The appeals court on Feb. 25 upheld a 2023 decision from the U.S. District Court of Arizona that found many provisions of two 2022 Republican-backed laws unconstitutional. That includes one provision that prohibits voters who don’t prove citizenship from voting for president, and another that prohibits them from voting by mail. The judges also found that the state must allow voters who don’t prove citizenship to vote in federal elections even if they use a state voter registration form. The U.S. Supreme Court in August had granted an emergency stay requiring the opposite, pending a final ruling from the 9th Circuit. That meant that election officials were outright rejecting state registration forms without proof of citizenship in the crucial period leading up to the November presidential election. According to Votebeat, the ruling is a win for voting rights groups, which banded together to challenge the laws after then-Gov. Doug Ducey signed them, arguing that they discriminated against minority and student voters. The case was heard by a three-judge panel — Kim McLane Wardlaw and Ronald M. Gould, both appointed by President Bill Clinton, and Patrick J. Bumatay, appointed by President Donald Trump. Bumatay dissented, and favored upholding substantial portions of the law, including the ones requiring proof of citizenship to vote in presidential elections and by mail. The court also rejected parts that require voters to provide documents proving that they live in Arizona in order to vote in federal elections.
California: A three-judge appellate panel kicked Huntington Beach’s voter identification case back down to the Orange County Superior Court, calling the lower court’s decision that the case was not ripe for decision “problematic.” Last November, Judge Nico Dourbetas dismissed the state’s challenge of the constitutionality of the city’s voter ID law, Measure A. The measure was approved by Surf City voters last year and altered the city charter to allow for voter ID beginning in 2026. The city has not detailed plans to implement such a law for next year’s election, and the language of the measure stated that it “may” implement voter ID, not that it will. But the California Fourth District Court of Appeal panel asked Dourbetas to modify his order, granting the city’s motion to dismiss the case, within 10 days. If that doesn’t happen, the appellate court would take over and invite both parties to file briefs by March 10. Specifically, the court is asking the city to reveal if it intends to conduct voter ID checks beyond those required by state and federal law. California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber filed a writ of mandate on Feb. 13, asking the appellate judges to decide the merits of the case. “We are grateful for, and encouraged by, the appellate court’s prompt action,” said Bonta said in a statement. “Our priority remains the same: making sure that Huntington Beach’s Measure A is struck down as quickly as possible.” Last week’s order, written by Judge Kathleen O’Leary, states that Huntington Beach’s city charter is now at odds with Elections Code section 10005. Outgoing Huntington Beach City Atty. Michael Gates has argued that the state constitution renders the elections code unconstitutional in regards to charter cities. The order, however, calls Huntington Beach’s argument that it has a constitutional right to regulate its own municipal elections free from state interference problematic. It notes that municipal elections are consolidated with statewide elections, which takes the local elections outside of the home rule doctrine.
Connecticut: Five people including prominent Democratic political operatives in Connecticut’s largest city were arrested Feb. 21 on allegations of absentee ballot tampering during a 2023 local election, including accusations that led to a court-ordered rerun of a mayoral election and helped fuel skepticism about voting security in the U.S. The charges generally allege that the defendants in the Bridgeport case illegally possessed absentee ballots of others, were illegally present when voters filled in their ballots and misrepresented absentee ballot rules to voters. Complaints previously filed with state elections enforcement officials said some voters were pressured into picking certain candidates when they filled out their ballots. Among those arrested were Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee Vice Chairperson Wanda Geter-Pataky, and Bridgeport Democratic City Council Members Alfredo Castillo, Maria Pereira and Jazmarie Melendez, according to the chief state’s attorney’s office. A Stratford woman was also arrested but contact information for her could not be found and it’s unclear if she has an attorney who can speak on her behalf.
Florida: With the Florida Supreme Court preparing to take up a similar case, an appeals court upheld the dismissal of a charge against one of 20 people accused by Gov. Ron DeSantis and other state officials in 2022 of registering and voting when they were ineligible. A three-judge panel of the 6th District Court of Appeal sided with defendant Peter Washington Jr., conflicting with the conclusions of the 3rd District Court of Appeal and 4th District Court of Appeal in similar cases. The Supreme Court in January agreed to take up an appeal by defendant Terry Hubbard in the 4th District Court of Appeal case. Orange County Circuit Judge Jennifer Harris in 2023 dismissed the charge against Washington, finding that the statewide prosecutor did not have authority. The state appealed, contending, at least in part, that the alleged crime happened in more than one circuit because Washington’s voter information was transmitted from Orange County to the Department of State in Leon County. Orange County is in the 9th Circuit, while Leon County is in the 2nd Circuit. But the appeals-court panel agreed with Harris that Washington’s alleged crime only happened in one circuit. “However we formulate the elements of this crime, there is only one act — voting,” said the 30-page opinion, written by Judge Roger Gannam and joined by Judges Carrie Ann Wozniak and Tesha Ballou. “The rest of the elements comprise knowledge and intent. Thus, the sole act constituting Washington’s alleged crime of unauthorized voting was his voting, and it occurred solely in Orange County. No act constituting the offense occurred in Leon County or anywhere else.”
Georgia: According to court documents filed in federal court this week, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has “fully satisfied” the $148 million judgment against him, The judgment against Giuliani was tied to two Fulton County election workers he defamed following the 2020 election, falsely claiming they helped steal the election from Donald Trump. According to the document, the judge said it was “fully satisfied” on Feb. 21 and the judge signed a satisfaction of judgement on Feb.24. The document does not say what terms have been met with the settlement. Giuliani was found liable for defamation and ordered to pay $148 million in 2023 to two Georgia election workers for accusing them of ballot tampering as he pushed then-President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud. The women said they faced death threats after Giuliani accused them of sneaking in ballots in suitcases, counting ballots multiple times, and tampering with voting machines. Even after the $148 million judgment against him, Giuliani has continued to falsely accuse the workers. The U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., has permanently barred him from making any statements that suggest the women engaged in any wrongdoing in connection with the 2020 presidential election.
The Georgia State Election Board voted to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to enforce a subpoena against a conservative group that was unable to produce evidence to support its claims of ballot stuffing in the state. True the Vote in 2021 filed complaints with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, including one in which it said it had obtained “a detailed account of coordinated efforts to collect and deposit ballots in drop boxes across metro Atlanta” during the November 2020 election and a crucial runoff election for two U.S. Senate seats in January 2021. Investigators with the secretary’s office looked into the group’s complaints and in April 2022 subpoenaed True the Vote for evidence supporting its allegations. A lawyer for the group wrote to a state attorney in May 2023 that a complete response would require it to identify people to whom it had pledged confidentiality and said it was withdrawing its complaints. A Fulton County judge in November 2023 ordered True the Vote to provide evidence it had collected, including the names of people it said had provided information. The organization said in a subsequent court filing it had no names, contact information or other documentary evidence to provide. The case was administratively closed in January 2024. Election Board member Janice Johnston on Wednesday proposed dismissing the lawsuit, withdrawing the subpoena and dismissing the group’s complaint. She said it is apparent that an alleged whistleblower whom True the Vote said it was relying on for evidence “will not be identified or cannot be identified” and that the investigation was unlikely to be successful as a result.
Maine: Two eastern European men have been charged with federal crimes in connection with the swatting attempts on Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows. Bellows and her family received threats of violence in December of 2023 after she tried to take Donald Trump off Maine’s ballot. She said her personal information had been shared on the dark web, known as doxing. “State and federal law enforcement working together apprehended the perpetrators of that swatting. It turns out that they were foreign nationals, and I’m impressed that Dept. of Justice worked so hard to bring the perpetrators to justice and are now moving forward to hold them accountable,” Bellows said. The Secretary of State said we cannot live in fear and let online trolls undermine democracy. “Now is the time for relationship building and finding community to join together and do the right thing. There are no simple solutions in a democracy for the problems before us. I think standing up for democracy starts with each one of us,” she said. The Department of Justice said Bellows was one of about 100 U.S. officials targeted with swatting.
Nevada: The Democratic National Committee (DNC) asked a federal appeals court to deny an appeal filed in a nearly year long legal case brought by state and national Republicans seeking to end Nevada’s practice of accepting mail ballots as many as four days after an election, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day. In May, the Nevada Republican Party, the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit alleging that Nevada’s practice of accepting those mail ballots violates federal election law. That lawsuit was dismissed in July by U.S. District Court judge Miranda Du, on the grounds that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The Republican National Committee then appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The DNC’s filing, shared exclusively with The Nevada Independent, argues that a ruling in the Republicans’ favor would disrupt decades of election administration precedent and upend voting laws not just in Nevada. Currently, 15 states and the District of Columbia allow ballots to arrive after Election Day so long as they are postmarked in time, and several other states allow some late-arriving ballots for certain groups such as voters abroad and members of the military. The DNC’s motion comes in the wake of Republicans prevailing in a similar case, when the conservative Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in October that a Mississippi law allowing election officials to count late-arriving ballots was unconstitutional. The judge in that case did not grant an injunction; meaning that the ruling was not in effect for Election Day in 2024, but it could impact states down the line — Republicans cited that ruling in their Ninth Circuit appeal.
North Carolina: The North Carolina Supreme Court ruled that it won’t fast-track the lawsuit by the Republican candidate for a Supreme Court seat who’s trying to throw out the ballots of more than 60,000 voters in an attempt to reverse the 2024 election results. Republican Jefferson Griffin received 734 fewer votes than Democratic incumbent Justice Allison Riggs, recounts show. But the race hasn’t been certified as Griffin challenges the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters whom he says shouldn’t have been allowed to vote in the first place. Griffin’s legal arguments were rejected by the State Board of Elections and again by a trial court judge in Wake County. He says data inconsistencies made it impossible for the state to verify the identities of the voters he’s challenging. Griffin is also challenging several thousand overseas voters, saying some should have been required to present photo identification and alleging others weren’t eligible to vote because they never lived in the state. After his loss at trial this month Griffin appealed to the Court of Appeals, where he’s currently a judge. But the Board of Elections then asked the Supreme Court to speed up the case by allowing it to skip the Court of Appeals and head directly to the Supreme Court. Riggs supported that strategy as well. The justices shot down that request in a 4-2 vote, allowing it to take the slower path through the Court of Appeals that Griffin sought.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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