Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking
Fairbanks, Alaska: Absentee ballots could become due on Election Day in Fairbanks North Star Borough elections if the Assembly votes in favor of an ordinance being sponsored by Barbara Haney. Currently, mailed-in absentee ballots must be received by the borough by the Tuesday after Election Day, a system which Haney says many in the community view with suspicion. “A lot of people have felt that this extended waiting after the election, to wait for all the ballots to come in, some people think that that seems kind of hinky. I’ve never had a problem with that, but there’s a lot of people who do, so I think this would add a lot of integrity to the process,” she argued. While alleviating these suspicions, the ordinance, according to Haney, would allow the Canvass Board to finish their work determining the eligibility of votes sooner. Voters who vote absentee in-person or via email would not be affected by the ordinance, as the process for completing those ballots takes place before or during Election Day already. The ordinance would also prohibit borough elections from running solely by mail. It would require witness signatures on absentee ballots to be accompanied by the witness’ printed name.
Arkansas Rulemaking: The State Board of Election Commissioners decertified all three members of the Searcy County Election Commission last week over allegations the commission accepted an equipment donation in violation of state rules. The decertification means the election commissioners cannot work in any official election capacity for 14 years. The State Board of Election Commissioners, per its rules, did not identify Searcy County or the election officials by name as it reviewed 10 possible violations of state election law and regulations, but election commissioners from Searcy County attended the meeting and confirmed afterward they were the subject of the board’s actions. Searcy County was the only county to count ballots by hand last year. The county’s election officials used audio-visual equipment donated by the Arkansas Voter Integrity Initiative to help observers monitor the vote counting. The nonprofit Voter Integrity Initiative unsuccessfully sued the state last year to get approval of a ballot measure that would require all elections in Arkansas to be conducted by hand-counted paper ballots. The state election board sanctioned Searcy County last October over issues involved in its hand count during the March 2024 primaries.
California: Sen. Tom Umberg has introduced legislation to prohibit individuals from offering big cash incentives to turn out voters in hotly contested elections. Umberg’s bill would close what he calls a loophole in California election law that he fears Elon Musk and other wealthy people will exploit by hosting lotteries to boost voter turnout. Musk gave out $1 million checks to swing state voters in the presidential election last year and then in Wisconsin a few months later. Umberg’s Senate Bill 398, which easily advanced through the California Senate and is now pending in the Assembly.
Georgetown, Delaware: Georgetown’s Town Council unanimously passed an ordinance at its June 9 meeting, amending the town code’s sections on voting. Georgetown’s regulations concerning absentee ballots and voter registration bring the town code to an agreement with state law. Town manager Gene Dvornick said one item in the ordinance requires the town maintain information about each person casting an absentee ballot including their name, address and ballot envelope identification number. Another item also deals with absentee ballots. “This amends Section 39-1 about casting of absentee ballots by adding – in addition to being out of town – any other reason permissible under Delaware law regarding absentee voting,” Dvornick said. That includes being unavoidably out of town, ill or due to religious reasons. The modified section on voter registration requires the town to use the Department of Elections’s file. Town solicitor Stephani Ballard Wagner said the modifications don’t change anything about voter qualifications.
Maine: After the House rejected it, the Senate narrowly supported a bill that would allow municipalities to adopt policies prohibiting firearms within municipal buildings and polling places. LD 1743 was also supported by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who told the Judiciary Committee that towns should have the option to regulate firearms in polling places because there is often anxiety over threats to election workers that data collected by her office shows persist. Sen. David Haggan (R-Penobscot) said during the floor debate that creating this sort of patchwork policy in the state could cause firearm owners to unintentionally be in violation. The House has yet to revisit the bill, leaving it still in non-concurrence.
Missoula, Montana: Missoula City Council has decided to conduct the 2025 city primary elections entirely by mail. The decision came after a heated debate over voter security and accessibility. On June 16, council members voted 7-2 in favor of the mail-in primary elections. Supporters believe this move will increase voter participation, while critics have raised concerns about election security. Sandra Vaseka, Ward 6 City Councilor, expressed her reservations. “I myself do think that in-person voting is the most secure way to run an election. So I will not be supporting that,” she said. The council considered two measures: whether to hold a primary if three or more candidates file in a race and whether to conduct it by mail. Both measures passed with the mail-in option receiving strong support. Stacie Anderson, Ward 5 City Councilor, countered the security concerns. “There is no evidence that shows that… voting in person is any more safe or secure than… mail-in voting,” she stated. Officials have announced that mail ballots will be sent to all registered voters if a primary is needed. The clerk’s office is now working on finalizing logistics in preparation for the 2025 city elections.
Nevada: Gov. Joe Lombardo (R) unexpectedly vetoed a bill that would have required voters to show a photo ID at the polls — a conservative priority across the country and something that has long been on the governor’s legislative wish list. The move brings a dramatic end to one of the legislative session’s most surprising outcomes: A bipartisan deal that combined the requirement for voter identification with a Democratic-backed measure to add more drop boxes for mail ballots that Lombardo had initially vetoed. The bill came together in the final days of the session and passed mere minutes before the Democratic-controlled Legislature adjourned just after midnight on June 3. Lombardo had been expected to sign it. In his veto message, Lombardo said he “wholeheartedly” supports voter ID laws but that he felt the bill fell short on addressing his concerns about ballots cast by mail, because such ballots could still be accepted “solely on the basis of a signature match” under the bill. Because it “would apply voter ID requirements unequally between in-person and mail ballot voters and fails to sufficiently guarantee ballot security, I cannot support it,” he said. The voter ID requirements in the bill mirrored a ballot initiative known as Question 7 that Nevada voters overwhelmingly approved last November. But voters would have to pass it again in 2026 to amend the state constitution. The requirement would then be in place by 2028. Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager, the Democrat who brokered the deal with Lombardo, said when he introduced the legislation that voters seemed poised to give the final approval, and that enacting a voter ID law would have given the state a head start on ensuring a smooth rollout before the next presidential election. Yeager called the governor’s decision a “breach of trust,” saying that he believes Lombardo gave in to pressure around him to veto the bill, designated Assembly Bill 499.
Tribes will soon be able to run their own polling locations for federal and state elections on reservations in Nevada. The change came from Gov. Joe Lombardo’s approval of Senate Bill 421 in the recently concluded legislative session. This bill was developed in response to barriers Tribal members in the state faced when trying to participate in elections. For instance, members of the Walker River Paiute Tribe, one of the two largest tribes in the state by population, had to travel over 60 miles to cast a ballot. “When someone has to drive two to fours to vote, that’s not Democracy,” said Nevada’s Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar. Before SB 421, the state required local counties to provide polling locations to tribes that wished to participate. A law that passed in 2023 added more polling locations throughout the state. The change doubled voter turnout in tribal land, raising it to 36 percent.
New Hampshire: Negotiators with the Senate agreed to accept a House proposal to add new documentation requirements to absentee voting — against the wishes of disability rights advocates who say it would make it harder for people with disabilities to vote. Under an amended version of Senate Bill 287, people seeking to vote absentee in New Hampshire would be required to either bring a photo ID into a clerk’s office, send in a photocopy of their ID, or send in a notarized signature in order to request their absentee ballot. On June 16, the Senate’s negotiators agreed to accept the House’s version of the bill during a committee of conference. Now, the bill will go back to the full chamber for a final vote. If it’s approved, Gov. Kelly Ayotte will have the final say. She can sign it, veto it, or allow it to become law without her signature. SB 287 was one of a pair of bills adding requirements to absentee voting. Senate Bill 218 goes even further and seeks to require absentee voters to submit hard-copy proof of their citizenship — such as a birth certificate or passport — when registering to vote in New Hampshire. This law would build upon a 2024 law that required in-person voters to do the same, though that law, which created the strictest standard in the U.S., has been challenged in court.
Also moving forward is a bill on list maintenance. Currently, municipal election officials known as “supervisors of the checklist” are required to maintain a list of registered voters for each town or polling ward — lists that determine whether someone is eligible to vote there. Every year, as supervisors receive death certificates, moving notices, or other new information, they must adjust the rolls to remove those voters. But once a decade, in the year ending in “1,” such as 2011 and 2021, the supervisors undertake a more comprehensive review. They look at every voter on the list; if the voter has not voted in an election within the last four years, and the town or city has no other information, they must send out letters to that resident’s address to verify that they still live there. Those who do not respond or are found ineligible are removed from the list and must re-register. Senate Bill 221, as amended by House and Senate negotiators last week, would require that comprehensive process to be held annually, rather than once a decade.
And the two chambers agreed to the Senate’s version of House Bill 67, which would require that all cities, towns, and school districts have at least one accessible voting machine available during local elections, and that they enter into an agreement with the Secretary of State’s Office to borrow them. The Secretary of State’s Office already provides those machines in elections with federal candidates, per federal law, but this law would apply to town meetings and municipal elections, too. Under the final version of HB 67, towns and cities would be responsible for the costs to program the machines for local ballots, but not for the machines themselves. But the chambers also agreed to House Bill 613, which would create a carve-out option for cities and town officials that do not believe they need to provide accessible voting machines. Under that agreement, a municipality may post a notice on its website at least three months before the election that it is not planning to offer the accessible machines unless someone submits a written request that they do so. That written request would need to be received at least 60 days before the election, should the municipality choose to pass the notice.
New Jersey: An Assembly committee approved a bill that would create a state counterpart to the federal Voting Rights Act] in what supporters said was a bid to protect New Jersey’s democracy from growing federal assaults. The measure would create a new independent office, housed in Treasury, to oversee elections where the voting rights or powers of racial and language minorities are limited. The Assembly Oversight, Reform, and Federal Relations Committee approved it in a 4-1 vote with an abstention from Assemblyman Michael Torrissi (R-Burlington). The bill would expand state courts’ power over elections, permitting them to change rules that violate the bill’s provisions, redraw voting districts, expand governing bodies, and move some election dates to coincide with higher-turnout state and federal races. The bill would create preclearance rules at the state level, requiring localities with a history of voter suppression or intimidation to seek approval before enacting election rule changes, mirroring a provision of the federal Voting Rights Act the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2013. The New Jersey Association of Election Officials opposed the bill, questioning whether it was needed and cautioning it would give courts broad authority over election administration that, to now, had largely been left with election administrators.
The Senate State Government, Wagering, Tourism, & Historic Preservation Committee unanimously approved a bill that would reform how post-election audits are undertaken. The committee voted to pass state Sen. Andrew Zwicker’s (D-South Brunswick) bill through the committee. The legislation would allow post-election audits to be conducted with independent, third-party ballot machines in addition to a hand count. Audits are currently conducted exclusively through hand counts, and Zwicker, the Senate bill’s sole sponsor, stated that the reform would enable more efficient auditing. The Democrat says reform to the system is further needed due to the increased embrace of early voting and vote-by-mail in the state’s elections. “With the widespread adoption of early voting and vote-by-mail, we need a more flexible system capable of accurately and efficiently counting paper and electronic ballots,” Zwicker said in a release. “While necessary in the past, hand counting ballots is simply not the most effective way to audit our elections in the modern era. This legislation is an easy way to make the auditing process more secure and transparent.” New Jersey law currently requires each county’s board of elections to audit at least 2% of that county’s election districts after an election. The legislation would not change that threshold.
New York: Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has signed a new bill allowing voters to receive refreshments while waiting to cast their ballots. The legislation, signed June 20, repeals a decades-old section of New York’s election law that previously made it a misdemeanor to give voters items of value — including water or snacks — near polling places. With extreme temperatures expected to climb into the upper 90s across the state, Hochul said the move is about protecting voters and democracy. “Providing water to voters waiting in line is a common-sense way to ensure New Yorkers have an easy, safe and secure experience in the voting booth,” said Hochul. “I’m committing to protecting the right to vote for all eligible New Yorkers.” The bill, championed by State Senator Zellnor Myrie and Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, aims to remove barriers and modernize voting access. “This bill removes an outdated barrier and restores common sense to exercising the franchise,” said Simon. “Voting shouldn’t be an endurance test.”
Ohio: Ohio could soon prosecute voter fraud more often, and the state unit charged with investigating potential fraud could become permanent. The Senate approved Senate Bill 4. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Therese Gavarone, R-Bowling Green, would codify the secretary of state’s Election Integrity Unit into law, keeping it safe from elimination by other secretaries of state. The unit would be required to investigate allegations of election fraud and voter suppression, allow public complaints and refer cases to prosecutors, law enforcement or federal agencies for review. Also, if a county prosecutor declines to prosecute a case, the attorney general can prosecute. Secretary of State Frank LaRose applauded the Senate passage as a confidence boost for accurate elections and a message to offenders that prosecution could more readily come. “Ohioans deserve absolute confidence in the honesty and accuracy of their elections,” LaRose said. “That’s why I created the state’s first-ever Election Integrity Unit in 2022 with a clear mission to bring unprecedented accountability to our voting process. This bill sends a clear message that if you cheat in our elections, we’ll find you and hold you accountable to the law.” The bill moves to the House for consideration.
Vermont: The House and Senate both passed a slimmed-down version of a bill that would make myriad changes to the state’s election procedures June 16 — even after the legislation, in a different form, seemed unlikely to advance when legislators last convened in full at the end of May. Among many other measures, the election bill would require more people to file campaign finance disclosure information and prohibit candidates who lose a primary election from running in the general election under another party, or as an independent. It would also require local officials to perform an audit of voter checklists in House and Senate districts that span multiple towns, a direct response to errors that plagued a Bennington County House race last fall. Before approving the bill, the Senate stripped a number of measures from the bill, though, including a study of using ranked-choice voting for Vermont’s presidential primaries. Collamore said on the floor that, with the bill facing dim prospects last month, he asked the Secretary of State’s Office — a key backer of the bill — for a list of “absolute, must-have provisions” from the many that cleared the House.
Wisconsin Rulemaking: The Wisconsin Elections Commission published a new permanent administrative rule to guide how election observers are allowed to conduct themselves at polling places. On June 20, the commission voted 5-1 to approve the rule after more than two years of work that involved the participation of a 24-person advisory committee made up of municipal clerks, poll workers, political parties and outside groups including advocates for people with disabilities and right-wing election conspiracy outfits. The final rule order specifies who is allowed to observe elections and defines the boundaries of what observers are allowed to do at a polling place. The rule also dictates when poll workers are allowed to call law enforcement to diffuse a situation and includes provisions to require that observers be allowed to use available chairs and restrooms and for how the news media is allowed to operate inside polling places. The rules are different for members of the media, who are allowed to take videos and photos inside polling places while observers are not.
Legal Updates
Federal Litigation: U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper, in the District of Massachusetts ruled June 13 that additional provisions of the president’s executive order on elections need to pause as well. The decision from Casper affirmed a pause on one of the most controversial parts of the order, which would require that people provide documents that prove their citizenship, like a passport, when they register to vote using the national registration form. Casper also blocked a provision aimed at barring states from counting mail ballots postmarked by Election Day but that election officials receive after. The judge noted that states have the power to set the rules for their elections, according to the Constitution, not the president. “The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote. Casper’s decision also blocked a provision of the executive order that would have added new requirements for how U.S. citizens abroad, including military members and their families, register and vote. These overseas voters currently use a designated postcard to register and request an absentee ballot. The order would require such voters to also mail-in proof of citizenship and proof of eligibility to vote in their home state. Such a provision “appears to be contrary to the will of Congress, which sought to remove procedural roadblocks which had prevented American citizens living abroad from voting,” the judge wrote.
Arizona: A voter registration law upheld by the Ninth Circuit last year returned to the federal appeals court this week for an en banc rehearing, in which 11 judges reconsidered whether a voter outreach organization has standing to challenge a law requiring cancellation of some voter registrations. Passed in 2022, Senate Bill 1260 requires county recorders to cancel the registration of anyone registered to vote in a different county, and prosecute with felony charges election officials who register a voter already registered in another state. Because a voter could register in a new county or state before their old registration is removed from the database, nonprofits Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino say the law would result in improper cancellations and prosecutions that would chill voter engagement and undermine the organizations’ voter registration efforts. The nonprofits sued the governor, attorney general and each of Arizona’s 15 county recorders in August 2022. In November, a Ninth Circuit panel reversed a preliminary injunction on the law, which has been frozen since only a day after it was enacted. The three judges found that the plaintiffs have no standing to challenge the cancellation provision for lack of actual injury, and that they’d lose on the merits in regard to the felony provision. This week, 11 circuit judges including Chief U.S. Circuit Judge Mary Murguia reconsidered each party’s arguments.
Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is suing the county’s supervisors, claiming they are illegally trying to seize control of the county’s elections. The lawsuit claims that the supervisors “engaged in an unlawful attempt to seize near-total control over the administration of elections.” It specifically states that Heap wants control over the information technology staff that manages the county’s voter registration system, and that the board has prohibited him from accessing certain areas of the elections building that he needs entry to for early voting purposes. The legal action comes after a months-long feud over control of elections between Heap, a Republican who took office in January, and the Republican-controlled board. The dissension has cast doubt on the officials’ ability to work together to run the elections in the closely scrutinized swing county. In response, Maricopa Supervisors Chairman Thomas Galvin and Supervisor Kate Brophy McGee released a joint statement saying the claims that they have stripped Heap’s IT access and refused to fully fund his office’s necessary expenses are false. “This absurd lawsuit is another example of the Recorder’s irresponsible and juvenile ready-fire-aim approach to governance,” Brophy McGee said. Additionally, Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell sent a cease and desist letter to James Rogers, the America First Legal lawyer representing Heap, stating that Rogers did not have the authority to represent Heap in a lawsuit he filed against the county supervisors, and demanding Rogers voluntarily withdraw it. Mitchell also threatened to file a complaint against Rogers with the State Bar of Arizona if Rogers continues to communicate with Heap on legal matters. In response, Rogers issued a statement saying that the recorder is free to choose his own counsel when engaged in litigation against the supervisors, citing case law.
California: The U.S. Justice Department sued the Orange County registrar of voters for not providing it with records of noncitizens that were removed from its voter list. The Justice Department accuses Robert Page of refusing to provide transparency of the county’s voter information, in violation of federal voting laws, and of concealing the unlawful registration of ineligible, noncitizen voters. “Voting by noncitizens is a federal crime, and states and counties that refuse to disclose all requested voter information are in violation of well-established federal elections laws,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. “Removal of noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls is critical to ensuring that the State’s voter rolls are accurate and that elections in California are conducted without fraudulent voting.” According to the Justice Department’s complaint filed in Santa Ana, California, a noncitizen in Orange County recently received an unsolicited mail-in ballot from the county registrar of voters despite lacking citizenship, prompting the attorney general’s action. Earlier this month, the Justice Department asked the Orange County registrar for records since Jan. 1, 2020, detailing voter registrations canceled due to noncitizenship, along with each registrant’s application, record, and voting history. In response, Page provided the requested data but redacted information like driver’s license and identification card numbers, Social Security numbers, state-issued voter ID numbers, language preferences and signature images, according to the Justice Department. Page relied upon several California state laws as the basis for the redactions.
Colorado: Vicki Stuart, 64, of Mesa County, who was a part of a scheme to steal ballots ahead of the 2024 election was sentenced to 5 years in the department of corrections. Stuart pleaded guilty to two charges related to the crime —one count of identity theft and another of forgery. At the time of the ballot theft Stuart was working as a postal carrier and, along with another woman, stole ballots before they could be delivered to voters. The two then fraudulently cast those ballots in an effort to test Colorado’s election security safeguards, investigators said. Three of those ballots did make it through the signature verification process and were counted as legitimate votes. Stuart’s alleged accomplice, Sally Jane Maxedon, is due in court July 15 for a plea and sentencing hearing.
A federal jury in Colorado on June 16 found that one of the nation’s most prominent election conspiracy theorists, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, defamed a former employee for a leading voting equipment company after the 2020 presidential election. The jury found that two of Lindell’s statements about Eric Coomer, the former security and product strategy director at Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems, including calling him a traitor, were defamatory. It ordered Lindell and his online media platform, formerly known as Frankspeech, to pay Coomer $2.3 million in damages, far less than the $62.7 million Coomer had asked for to help send a message to discourage attacks on election workers. Lindell said he would appeal the financial award, saying Coomer’s lawyers did not prove Coomer had been harmed. He also said he would continue to speak out about election security, including criticizing the makers of election equipment like Dominion. Coomer said during the two-week Lindell trial that his career and life were destroyed by the statements. His lawyers said Lindell either knew the statements were lies, or conveyed them recklessly without knowing if they were true. Lindell’s lawyers denied the claims and said Frankspeech was not liable for statements made by others. The jury found that eight other statements made by Lindell and others appearing on Frankspeech were not.
District of Columbia: The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia revived a challenge to the District’s law that lets noncitizens cast ballots, saying a lower court was too hasty in dismissing the case. The court said residents do have standing to sue because the power of their votes could be diluted. The ruling does not invalidate the law but will force a district judge to deal with the substance of the case. And the court said the plaintiffs in the case make a plausible argument that their votes are diluted, which earns them a chance to be heard on their legal challenge. “The claimed injury is hardly abstract,” Judge Randolph wrote. The District’s law allows noncitizens who have been in the city for at least 30 days to cast ballots in local elections. They include undocumented immigrants and foreign diplomats, though they must renounce their ability to vote elsewhere to register in the city. As of earlier this month, the District had 980 noncitizens registered to vote. The Board of Elections tallied 480 noncitizen ballots cast in November. That works out to about 1% of the city’s estimated noncitizen population that voted.
Georgia: In a new lawsuit, Republicans claim the Fulton County Board of Commissioners unlawfully blocked two GOP nominees to the county’s Board of Elections. The suit, filed June 13 by the Fulton County Republican Party, claimed the Commission “violated state law by rejecting the nominees of the Fulton County Republican Party (“Fulton GOP”) to the Board of Elections.” The legal filing asked the court to force the Board of Commissioners to confirm the nominees. Fulton County’s director of external affairs Jessica Corbitt-Dominguez declined to comment when reached Monday, saying “Fulton County does not comment on matters of pending litigation.” The suit claims that, under Georgia law, the County Commissioners must “appoint two persons nominated by each of the two major political parties” to the Board of Elections. But the Fulton GOP’s suit claims at a May 21 meeting, the Commissioners failed to confirm the two Republican nominees: Jason Frazier and Julie Adams. Adams currently serves on the Board of Elections and drew headlines in the closing days of the 2024 presidential election for litigation questioning the scope of her duty to certify the results.
Minnesota: Lorraine Combs and Ronnie Williams were charged last week for allegedly submitting fraudulent voter registration applications during 2021 and 2022. Combs and Williams were both charged in federal court with one count of conspiracy to engage in voter registration fraud, according to court documents. From 2021 to 2022, Combs and Williams allegedly created fake names, addresses, birthdays, phone numbers and social security numbers, which they then used to complete voter registration applications, charging documents state. They would submit the forms to a foundation, referred to as “Foundation 1” in court documents, which would send the fraudulent applications to county election offices in Minnesota. The foundation would then pay Williams, who split the money with Combs, officials say.
Montana: A bill restricting when Montanans can register to vote — including eliminating most of Election Day — would disproportionately affect Indigenous peoples living in rural parts of the state, according to new court documents filed this week. The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Blackfeet Nation, the Fort Belknap Indian Community, and the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, as well as tribal advocacy nonprofit Western Native Voice, filed to join the lawsuit brought last month by the Montana Federation of Public Employees before Lewis and Clark County District Court, which challenged the constitutionality of Senate Bill 490 and another bill that strengthened voter ID laws. The new law tightened the deadline for voters to register to vote to noon on Election Day and eliminates registration on the Monday before an election, but opens it on the prior Saturday, which previously was not a day voters could register. In the motion to intervene, the Native American coalition said the suit marks the third time in six years that Western Native Voice and some of Montana’s sovereign tribal nations have gone to the courts to challenge the “Legislature’s continued insistence on making it more difficult for Native Americans in Montana to vote. ” “Each time we’ve stood up in court for our right to vote, we do so not for ourselves, but for the generations who came before us and those who will come after,” Fort Belknap President Jeffrey Stiffarm said in a statement. “Our ancestors fought for recognition, sovereignty, and dignity. It’s racism to try and enact the same laws over again. We will not let the state drag us backwards or silence our people. Not now. Not ever.” Under previous Montana law, anyone in line at the ballot box by 8 p.m. on Election Day could register to vote. “Past efforts to limit Election Day voter registration impermissibly interfered with the right to vote,” according to court documents filed by the tribal advocates. “On notice from its own legal analysis that the planned legislation likely did not conform with the Montana Constitution, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 490, which does away with eight critical hours of voter registration on Election Day.” The Native American groups joined the lawsuit because restricting Election Day voter registration disproportionately affects Native American Voters. Citing the Supreme Court opinion, their filing states that Native voters “‘rely on Election Day registration because of numerous issues they face in voting, including lack of access to mail, transportation, and the long distances to county seats where they can register.’”
New Jersey: Bruce E. Behringer, 69 of Park Ridge was charged with trying to cast an illegal vote after a joint investigation by the offices of the Bergen County superintendent of elections and prosecutor. Behringer was charged with tampering with public records, false registration and attempting to cast an illegal vote. The investigation revealed that between September 2020 and November 2024, Behringer falsely completed one New Jersey voter registration application and three mail-in voter ballots in the name of another person. As a result of the investigation, Behringer was arrested on May 27 and charged with third-degree tampering with public records or information, third-degree false registration and third-degree attempting to cast an illegal vote. He was released pending a first appearance in state Superior Court in Hackensack.
Oklahoma: Legal challenges were filed aimed at a recent law that puts more restrictions on the process voters use to get issues on the ballot. The suits were filed with the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Gov. Kevin Stitt in May signed Senate Bill 1027, which took effect immediately. The new law requires those circulating a petition for a statutory change to get signatures that amount to no more than 11.5% of the votes cast in a single county in the most recent gubernatorial election. The threshold increases to 20.8% for a constitutional amendment. The law effectively forces signature gatherers to visit several Oklahoma counties rather than concentrating on high-population areas. Under the new law, those seeking to place items on the ballot would be prohibited from paying petition circulators based on the number of signatures collected. The law requires sources of payment to circulators to be disclosed and bars out-of-state interests from donating. Petition circulators would have to be registered voters. It requires a political appointee, the Secretary of State, to approve the gist, which is the brief summary of the ballot measure that voters see at the top of the signature sheet. One suit challenges the overall constitutionality of the law, saying it imposes an undue burden. The suit seeks to put the law on hold until the legal dispute is resolved. The second suit challenges the ability to make the law retroactive.
Pennsylvania: Judge Harvey Bartle III sentenced two former local officials from southeast Pennsylvania to harsher sentences than prosecutors requested, including prison time, for their roles in an attempt to steal a 2021 mayoral election. “In the court’s view there are very few crimes in our federal code which are more serious than what you have committed,” Bartle told defendant Md Nurul Hasan, the former council vice president and mayoral candidate in Millbourne Borough, who pleaded guilty in April to election-related fraud charges. “What you have done is undermine our democratic process.” The judge sentenced Hasan to 36 months in prison, along with one year of supervised release. Another defendant, former council member Md Rafikul Islam, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, plus one year of supervised release and $1,700 in fines. The judge admonished prosecutors for recommending a lighter punishment for Islam. A third defendant will be sentenced next week. Federal investigators charged the men in February with multiple counts of fraudulent voter registration and related crimes in a failed scheme to steal the mayoral election for Hasan, who ran a write-in campaign after losing the Democratic primary to fellow council member Mahabubul Tayub.
Virginia: The U.S. Supreme Court turned away Virginia’s appeal that sought to quash a challenge to the state’s lifetime voting ban for people convicted of felonies, allowing the lawsuit to move ahead toward trial. Two disenfranchised voters claim the ban violates the Virginia Readmission Act, a federal law that set conditions for Virginia to regain congressional representation following the Civil War. Lower courts allowed the lawsuit to move forward, saying courts can enforce the Readmission Act and that the state doesn’t have 11th Amendment immunity. Virginia’s Republican-controlled attorney general’s office, however, argued that would open the “floodgates” and mark a “radical change in the law.” “The Fourth Circuit’s ruling that the Readmission Acts are judicially enforceable invites courts to wade into the political decisions that restored the rebel States to federal representation more than 150 years ago, calling into question Congress’s continuing determination that the States have republican governments and are entitled to representation,” the state wrote in its petition. In a brief order, the Supreme Court declined to take up the case. A federal district judge is set to hold a bench trial in October in the case.
A former Northern Virginia elections registrar cannot sue state Attorney General Jason S. Miyares (R) and a top deputy over what she says were bogus charges related to her handling of 2020 presidential election results, according to a federal judge who found the prosecutors have legal immunity from such claims. The judge’s order allows former Prince William County registrar Michele White to continue suing two other defendants — a pair of investigators from Miyares’s office who White says fabricated evidence against her to build a felony case that cost the registrar her career but ultimately crumbled before it could go to trial. Miyares’s office accused White of altering the results of the presidential vote in the state’s election reporting system and mishandling absentee ballots. In September 2022, a grand jury indicted White on felony counts of corrupt conduct and making false statements, as well as a misdemeanor charge of willful neglect of duty by an election official. But the case fell apart in January 2024, just weeks ahead of her scheduled trial, when Miyares said he was dropping the charges because key witnesses had changed their accounts. White filed a lawsuit in the fall in federal court in Richmond against Miyares, former senior assistant attorney general Joshua N. Lief and two now-retired investigators from Miyares’s office
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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