Electionline Weekly August-7-2025

Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking

Federal Legislation: U.S. Rep. Jennifer McClellan (D-Virginia), is reintroducing a 2007-era proposal to establish a private right of legal action for people who have been subjected to voter deception. The measure was first pitched by former President Barack Obama when he was still a U.S. Senator. The Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act would help quash practices intended to trick would-be voters into either not exercising their right to cast a ballot, or voting for a candidate opposite their party affiliation or values. Such deceptive practices include when false information is disseminated about the time, place or eligibility requirements for voting. McClellan’s legislation would also require the U.S. Department of Justice to report to Congress about the amount and types of deceptive practices it investigates and prosecutes. Updating the previous version Obama carried, McClellan’s bill also aims to address new challenges posed by artificial intelligence-generated disinformation. “I will fight to protect everyone’s right to vote from these new threats,” McClellan said in a statement. Obama’s bill, which failed to advance in Congress, followed incidents where deceptive practices were used to recruit field workers and distribute flyers with false endorsements by Black regional figures of Republican congressional and gubernatorial candidates. The bill was also later carried by McClellan’s predecessor, the late Don McEachin and others and remains timely, McClellan said, to try again.

Juneau, Alaska: The Juneau Assembly decided on August 4 to delay voting on whether to adopt a ranked choice voting system for municipal elections beginning in 2026. Instead of voting on the ordinance at the Assembly’s next regular meeting later this month, members decided to push back the vote until November — after this fall’s Oct. 7 municipal election. They’ll still hold public testimony on the topic on Aug. 18. Assembly member Ella Adkison proposed the local ordinance earlier this summer and advocated for its adoption at the meeting. She said the system aligns with Juneau’s values and it will encourage more people to run for local office. “It really is good for races where there are lots of candidates in one seat,” she said, “I think Juneau, in general, likes having lots of candidates in races, because it means that the person that they feel represents them the most is the person who actually gets onto the Assembly.” It’s already too late for the system to be implemented for this October’s municipal election, but Assembly members worried that adopting it now might confuse voters anyway. Assembly member Alicia Hughes-Skandijs said she supports ranked choice voting, but wants to wait until there’s less going on. If the system is approved, Juneau would become the first major city in Alaska to adopt ranked choice voting for municipal elections.

Arizona Rulemaking: In a draft rulebook for the state’s 2026 midterm elections, known as the Election Procedures Manual, released August 1, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) has removed examples of what constitutes illegal voter intimidation. He also deleted a paragraph that said the secretary of state could finalize the state’s election results without a particular county’s results, if that county’s officials missed the state deadline to finalize them. According to Votebeat, the inclusion of those provisions in the previous edition of the manual, released in 2023 ahead of the 2024 elections, drew Republican lawsuits alleging that Fontes had exceeded his authority, and courts ruled against him. Fontes said that he has to follow court orders and that he believes the new version will still protect voters and the integrity of elections. “We’re trying to walk the line between some of the crazy rulings that we’ve seen coming out of the court that seem to protect the First Amendment rights of people who would scream at voters in line, and those First Amendment rights of voters to peaceably assemble, with this new approach,” Fontes said. Fontes’ draft manual includes some changes that voting rights groups have requested for years, such as detailing the rights of voters who don’t speak English well, and of incarcerated residents. Fontes is also using this manual to try to help election officials avoid problems that have come up in recent elections, such as ballot printing errors.

New Hampshire: Gov. Kelly Ayotte signed election legislation into law last week including: bipartisan legislation to require that all cities and towns provide accessible voting machines at local elections — not just those with state and federal candidates as well as a bill that would include more documentation requirements for absentee voters. Senate Bill 218 requires that absentee voters submit documents indicating citizenship, age, domicile, and identity when they fill in the affidavit allowing them to register to vote. House Bill 67 requires the provision of accessible voting machines in all New Hampshire elections. The new law addresses a longstanding discrepancy. Under federal law, New Hampshire’s Secretary of State’s Office must own and operate those accessible machines, which allow voters with vision impairments and other disabilities to use a keyboard and audio cues to fill in and print out a ballot. But while federal law requires that those machines be available in all elections with federal candidates, it does not require the same for elections that are fully local, such as town meetings, annual school meetings, municipal elections, or special elections for the state House and Senate. Accordingly, for years, the Secretary of State’s Office did not supply cities and towns the machines for local elections, and most towns did not have them. This month’s law requires that all towns provide machines and also requires that the Secretary of State’s Office enter into agreements with all cities and towns in order to provide those machines.

Legal Updates

Alabama: Houston County Circuit Judge Maurice J. “John-John” Steensland nixed an effort to stall municipal elections in Dothan set on August 5. KSG Ministries filed a legal action late August 4 seeking an injunction that would block the vote, claiming authorities denied inmates their right to cast ballots. “Numerous individuals incarcerated in state and county custody are legal residents of Dothan, Alabama, and remain fully eligible to vote under Alabama law,” the lawsuit alleged. The suit, filed by KSG leader Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, claimed that lockup officials denied those inmates access to absentee ballot applications. Glasgow claimed that the lockups have failed to provide a policy allowing inmates not convicted of crimes involving moral turpitude to vote in this week’s elections that include races for mayor, commissioners, and city school board. Steensland refused to issue an order delaying the elections. He set an August 28 hearing to hear from those on both sides of the issue that potentially could affect a runoff next month.

Arizona: Attorney General Kris Mayes is asking a judge to toss a Republican Party bid to void a 2005 Arizona law that extended the right to vote in federal elections to the children of Arizona residents living overseas. The state party and Republican National Committee say the law violates the Arizona constitution, which requires people to have lived here to vote. The federal Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act specifically allows Arizonans who are overseas to keep that residency status for purposes of voting by mail. That includes those in the military as well as U.S. citizens who are living outside the country. Mayes is arguing those children of Arizona residents born overseas never had the opportunity to establish residency elsewhere.

Arkansas: Deborah Smith, 57, of North Little Rock, and a former Pulaski County Clerk employee has been charged with a felony in connection with voter registration tampering last year. Smith surrendered to authorities July 31 after investigators with Attorney General Tim Griffin’s Election Integrity Unit obtained a warrant for her arrest. The State Board of Election Commissioners this spring referred a complaint it received from Pulaski County election commissioners about a possible election integrity violation. The state board asked the attorney general’s office and the county prosecuting attorney to investigate the switching of 132 voter registrations from North Little Rock to Maumelle ahead of the 2024 general election. “We determined during our investigation that Smith deliberately switched the voter registrations while employed at the clerk’s office. She is charged with one count of violation of voter eligibility, a Class D felony,” Griffin’s press release said.

California: Senior U.S. District Judge John Mendez knocked down a California law requiring large social media companies to remove deceptive content from their platforms, saying federal law preempts the state. Social media giants like X Corp. challenged Assembly Bill 2655, which requires certain platforms to remove “materially deceptive content” about political candidates, elections officials and elected officers. They argued the federal Communications Decency Act gives service providers like social media platforms immunity from content posted by a third party. Mendez said from the bench that he didn’t need to rule on First Amendment and constitutional arguments, instead relying solely on federal preemption. However, his ruling only applies to qualifying parties in the suit — X Corp. and Rumble. “No parts of this statute are severable because the whole statute is preempted,” Mendez said. “No parts of A.B. 2655 can be salvaged.” The law — called the Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024 — sought to stop the spread of election-related deepfakes. Its author had called such deepfakes dangerous tools for those waging disinformation campaigns.

Colorado: U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martinez ordered Joe Altman, a Douglas County-based conservative podcaster to pay over $90,000 in fees and sanctions for refusing to cooperate with a lawsuit against him. Oltmann, host of the Conservative Daily podcast, has widely claimed that Denver-based election equipment maker Dominion Voting Systems colluded to rig the 2020 election and give former President Joe Biden the win. Both the company and a former employee directly accused by Oltmann have filed numerous defamation lawsuits over the false claims. Martinez ordered Oltmann to pay $37,000 for fleeing the courthouse during a deposition last year and cover $53,757 for plaintiff Eric Coomer’s litigation costs related to Oltmann’s non-compliance. Coomer is the former director of product security and strategy for Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems.

Florida: A Florida appeals court has dealt a blow to Miami officials’ controversial plan to delay city elections until 2026, ruling that the ordinance extending elected officials’ terms was unconstitutional and must be struck down. In a sharply worded 27-page decision, the 3rd District Court of Appeal affirmed a lower court’s finding that the city violated both its charter and the Miami-Dade County Home Rule Charter when it voted in June to postpone the November 2025 mayoral and Commission elections. The three-judge panel concluded the city cannot override its charter without a voter referendum. “(Miami) may not enact an ordinance which effectively amends its Charter without submission of the issue to the will and vote of its constituents by referendum,” the court wrote, declaring the ordinance “unconstitutional.” In its defense of the ordinance, City Attorney George Wysong cited state laws that allow municipalities to shift election dates by ordinance and referred to a previous court ruling in which a court upheld a similar date change in North Miami. But the court rejected that argument, pointing to Miami-Dade’s home rule protections, which require voter approval for any changes to municipal election schedules or term lengths.

Backers of proposed constitutional amendments and voting-rights groups are appealing after a federal district judge last month refused to block parts of a new Florida law that placed additional restrictions on the state’s ballot-initiative process. The League of Women Voters of Florida, the League of United Latin American Citizens and two individual plaintiffs filed a notice August 1 that was a first step in appealing to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The Florida Decides Healthcare and FloridaRighttoCleanWater.org political committees, which are trying to put proposals on the 2026 ballot, and individual plaintiffs filed similar notices July 25. The notices are something of a counter to an appeal filed July 11 by Secretary of State Cord Byrd and Attorney James Uthmeier, the defendants in the lawsuit. Byrd and Uthmeier want the Atlanta-based appeals court to overturn a decision by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker that blocked one part of the law.

Neil Joseph Gillespie, 69, who tried to run for mayor in the upcoming city of Ocala election but was denied because of a residency issue and because officials said he failed to get enough valid petition signatures has filed a federal lawsuit against Marion County Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox. Gillespie, representing himself in this civil action, filed the complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. Gillespie seeks $1 million in damages plus legal fees, costs and “other relief this Court deems necessary in the interest of justice.” Contacted by a Star-Banner reporter, Wilcox declined comment, saying he wants to wait until he has completely read the paperwork.

Georgia: Senior Superior Court Judge David Emerson has ruled that the Fulton County Board of Commissioners must appoint election critics nominated by the Fulton County Republican Party to the county election board. Emerson said there is nothing in the law that supports the idea that commissioners can veto eligible nominees. “The Board shall appoint the two members as nominated by the county executive committee chairperson,” wrote Emerson. The decision comes after the Democratic-controlled Fulton Board of Commissioners rejected the two GOP nominees in a party-line vote in May. The Georgia Republican Party sued the commission, arguing the commission is legally obligated to accept the party’s nominations. Jason Frazier, one of two GOP appointees, has lodged thousands of voter eligibility challenges in Fulton. And the other party nominee, Julie Adams, an incumbent election board member, voted against certifying last year’s primary election. Fulton Commissioner Marvin Arrington, who voted against the appointments of Adams and Frazier to the elections board in May, criticized the judge’s ruling. “This ruling essentially eliminates our discretion as elected commissioners, treating us more like record-keepers than decision-makers,” he said.

Idaho: Two individuals in Ada County are facing criminal charges related to illegal voting, authorities announced. One person is accused of voting as a non-citizen, while the other allegedly voted while still on felony probation. These arrests are part of Idaho’s comprehensive voter roll review, initiated following a 2024 executive order aimed at ensuring only eligible citizens participate in elections. The review, spearheaded by the Secretary of State’s office, involved cross-referencing voter data with federal and state records. Officials confirmed that no voting machines or tallies were compromised during the process, and additional arrests are anticipated.

Louisiana: The U.S. Supreme Court has expanded the scope of a Louisiana redistricting case that could weaken key provisions of the landmark Voting Rights Act. In a brief order released August 1, the court reframed the appeal in Callais v. Louisiana, a lawsuit that non-Black voters filed against the state over the creation of a second majority Black district for the state in the U.S. House. The justices intend to look at whether a state violates the U.S. Constitution when it seeks to remedy a violation of the Voting Rights Act. In the order, the court asked parties to the case to answer “Whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority congressional district violates the Fourteenth or Fifteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.” The 14th Amendment, in part, covers representation in Congress, and the 15th Amendment prevents citizens from being denied the right to vote based on their race. If the justices determine Louisiana violated the constitution with its latest congressional map, it could undermine the Voting Rights Act. The legislation was approved in 1965 to bolster the protections granted in the 14th and 15th Amendments. It has been amended five times since then to strengthen its provisions, though voting rights advocates note federal court rulings over the past decade have chipped away at the law.

Maryland: An attorney representing the Maryland State Board of Elections is asking a Circuit Court judge to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the legality of state-funded primary elections that exclude independent voters. Five unaffiliated Maryland voters filed suit in May and asked a judge to declare that restrictions on primary elections are a violation of the state constitution. Elections officials, in a response filed Wednesday afternoon, asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed citing a lack of standing and a “failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.” In his response on behalf of the board, Daniel Kobrin, an assistant attorney general, wrote that a challenge based “solely as taxpayers” is insufficient to establish standing for such a challenge. The motion filed by Korbin also asks the judge to declare that the five voters have no right to challenge the restrictions on primary elections because of previous court decisions. Kobrin noted two decisions by the Supreme Court of Maryland that said “voters have no right under the state constitution to vote in the primary elections of a party to which they do not belong.” In another case, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld closed primaries and a political party’s First Amendment right “not to associate” and therefore cannot be required to allow unaffiliated voters to participate, according to the motion filed by the board’s attorney Kobrin, in his motion, writes that “the merits of the unaffiliated voters’ challenge have already been rejected.”

Michigan: The state’s primary court for suing the government properly dismissed a Republican attempt to disenfranchise the family members of overseas and military voters, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday. In a per curiam unpublished opinion, the state’s appellate court affirmed a previous decision of the Michigan Court of Claims in a lawsuit filed by the Michigan Republican Party and the Republican National Committee. The opinion was signed by Judge Philip Mariani, Judge Allie Greenleaf Maldonado and Judge Adrienne Young. The lawsuit said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Bureau of Elections Director Jonathan Brater issued election guidance that granted voter status to people who didn’t live in Michigan, targeting overseas and military voters’ spouses and adult children. The Court of Claims ruled against that argument in October 2024, and said it was an 11th hour Hail Mary attempt by the MIGOP and the RNC to disenfranchise the state’s voters before the upcoming November 2024 general election. It was dismissed by Judge Sima Patel, an appointee of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Patel denied Benson’s request for sanctions, however. The parties filed in the Court of Appeals, which on Wednesday affirmed the lower court’s decision.

Jacob Wohl, 27 and John Burkman, 59, both of Virginia, pleaded no contest to intimidating Michigan voters in 2020, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced. Burkman and Wohl are accused of orchestrating a series of robocalls aimed at suppressing Black voters in Detroit during the 2020 election. The men discouraged Detroiters from voting in the general election by creating robocalls in late August of 2020. The calls went out to nearly 12,000 residents with a Detroit zip code, officials say. “After five years, I’m glad this case has finally reached a resolution,” Nessel said. “Deceptive and racially targeted suppression schemes will not be tolerated in Michigan. My office will continue to pursue and prosecute voter intimidation, no matter how long it takes, to ensure that Michiganders can exercise their right to vote free from fear and deception.” The two men were charged in 2020 and bound over for trial. The duo attempted to quash the charges, but the Court of Appeals ruled the state’s conduct was constitutional. The two pled no contest to: One count of election law – bribing/intimidating voters, a 5-year felony; One count of conspiracy to commit an election law violation, a 5-year felony; One count of using a computer to commit the crime of election law – intimidating voters, a 7-year felony; and Using a computer to commit the crime of conspiracy, a 7-year felony.

Missouri: In an August 4 ruling Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Marty Wayne Seaton scheduled a recall vote for Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. for next month, after the county election board said the initial Aug. 26 date demanded by petitioners was not “feasible.” Seaton heard arguments Friday in a pair of court actions: Election officials asked to move the recall vote to the general election date in November, while a group of concerned citizens pushed to keep their earlier date. The board said the Nov. 4 date was the “earliest available date that fully complies with Missouri election law,” according to court documents. In an emailed statement, White thanked the court for moving the date back, but criticized the idea of holding a recall at all, which he said would be costly. “If this effort is ultimately allowed to proceed, it will be a $5 million mistake — one I believe Jackson County voters will not forget. I will not stop fighting this reckless misuse of public funds and power,” he wrote. “This is a distraction from the work we should be doing.

Nevada: Washoe County is filing to dismiss a lawsuit brought by former Registrar of Voters Cari-Ann Burgess. In their motion to dismiss, the county alleges that Burgess was grossly incompetent and accused her of violating federal and state law requiring deactivations for the county’s voter list. They also accused Burgess of issuing a defective sample ballot, attempting to execute an illegal plan for “unofficial” drop boxes at designated churches, fraudulently charging overtime for non-mandatory social events, and that she demonstrated extremely deficient election law knowledge. The county also says Burgess refused to acknowledge employee contributions, made inappropriate remarks, and told another employee she was going to punch her in the throat, which the filing says she dismissed as a joke. Burgess was terminated in February. Burgess subsequently filed the suit against the county, claiming disability discrimination, retaliation, emotional distress, fraud, defamation and conspiracy.

Oregon: U.S. District Judge Michael J. McShane has found that only the Constitution Party of Oregon, not the conservative activist group Judicial Watch or its members, has authority to challenge Oregon’s handling of voter rolls in a pending lawsuit. McShane called Judicial Watch’s allegations “speculative” and found they don’t allege that voter fraud is occurring or that any inactive voter received a ballot or cast one in error. In contrast, he found the Constitution Party had adequately raised a real harm, contending that the state’s “outdated” voter registration lists have made it harder for the party to track whether its members’ registrations are active to maintain its standing as a minor political party able to nominate candidates. “The Constitution Party has plausibly alleged that outdated or inaccurate voter lists impair a core function of that organization,”McShane wrote in a 23-page opinion. He kept alive the party’s claim that Oregon has failed to remove ineligible voters from its voter registration rolls.

Texas: A three-judge panel of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that Texas may enforce a state law that invalidates mail-in ballots submitted without a voter’s state identification number or partial Social Security number. The panel ruled unanimously that the requirement the Texas Legislature enacted in 2021 as part of an election-integrity bill known as SB1 did not violate a federal law preventing states from imposing voting requirements “not material” to the validity of ballots. In a brusque, nine-page opinion, Judge James Ho twice said the appeals panel had “little difficulty” concluding that Texas’ law was valid. “The number-matching requirements are obviously designed to confirm that every mail-in voter is who he claims he is,” Ho wrote for the panel. “And that is plainly material to determining whether an individual is qualified to vote.” The judges said that merely requiring applications to list the voter’s name and address was insufficient to address security concerns. “That information is easily available to anyone who simply requests it,” wrote Ho, a Trump appointee. “As a result, any person can request and receive that information about a registered voter, use that information to apply for a mail-in ballot, and then cast the ballot, with minimal risk of detection.”

Virginia: The Virginia Court of Appeals determined that the Virginia NAACP’s yearslong challenge to Gov. Glenn Youngkin over access to records concerning his administration’s changes to voting rights restorations can move forward. Because a previous ruling by a Richmond judge that sided with the governor never addressed the attorneys fees that had been part of NAACP’s lawsuit, the appellate court has decided the case is not closed. “We dismiss the premature appeal without prejudice and remand the matter to the trial court to consider the attorney fee issue,” the court’s judges wrote in a filing. The Virginia Conference of the NAACP had originally filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the governor’s office seeking further details about how it handles restoration of voting rights to people with felony convictions who have completed their sentences. In Virginia, people with these convictions permanently lose their right to vote unless a governor pardons them or they petition a governor to restore the right. Previous governors — both Republican and Democratic — had worked to streamline the process and make it automatic upon completion of a prison sentence. The process quietly reverted to a petition-based one under the Youngkin administration, with fewer petitions granted than previous governors and unclear criteria for what would yield a “yes” or “no” from his administration. The lack of transparency in the restoration process is why Virginia’s NAACP filed its original records request.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker