Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking
Alaska Ballot Measure: A group of Alaska Republicans has filed a ballot initiative seeking to clarify a requirement that only U.S. citizens be allowed to vote in Alaska elections. Already, Alaska statute states that to vote in Alaska, a person must be a U.S. citizen. Reports from the Division of Elections indicate that noncitizen voting is exceedingly rare. The ballot initiative would amend the statute to add a single word: “only.” Existing law states that “A person may vote at any election who … is a citizen of the United States.” The petition seeks to amend the statute to dictate that “Only a person who … is a citizen of the United States … may vote at any election.” The initiative sponsors, former Senate Majority Leader John Coghill of Fairbanks, former House Speaker Mike Chenault of Kenai and former Anchorage Sen. Josh Revak, say the change is needed. “With things that are going on in the world today, we need to make explicitly clear what our intentions are and what the people in the State of Alaska would like to see,” Chenault said in a brief interview. “That’s why we put forth this initiative.” The initiative proposed by Coghill, Chenault and Revak would not amend the Alaska Constitution. Passing a ballot measure in Alaska requires gathering thousands of signatures from voters across the state to place the question on a statewide ballot. If the organizers succeed in gathering the requisite signatures, a ballot measure is typically accompanied by a statewide campaign to garner support from voters.
Shasta County, California Ballot Measure: The Shasta Election Task Force said they have submitted more than 10,000 signatures to the County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Office in an effort to place a measure on the ballot that would alter the voting process. The group delivered three boxes of petitions on Tuesday morning, initiating the process for staff to verify the signatures. The proposed amendments include implementing voter ID requirements, ensuring same-day election results, and maintaining clean voter rolls. The group aims to have the measure on the ballot by next June, or sooner if possible, contingent upon the validation of the signatures. When asked about the legality of their proposals in relation to state law, the group expressed confidence that their measures are legal.
Michigan: A bill reintroduced by Sen. Mary Cavanagh, a Democrat from Redford Township, would impose a $1,000 fine on anyone who knowingly lies about elections or a voter’s eligibility. Employers who had someone working for them “for election-related purposes” violate the provision — such as a lobbyist who suggests certain groups aren’t eligible to vote early — could face a fine of up to $10,000. The goal is to deter election-related misinformation in a critical swing state, Cavanagh said during a Senate Elections and Ethics Committee hearing Wednesday. Such efforts “can cause confusion, reduce voter turnout, and ultimately undermine the legitimacy of our electoral system,” she said. Cavanagh’s proposal would target only those who “maliciously” spread false information, she said. “We worked very closely with the ACLU as well as the Secretary of State’s office, the AG and municipal government to make sure we’re not infringing on anyone’s rights or someone just passing information to their neighbor,” Cavanagh said.
Mississippi: Last week, members of the House Select Committee on Voters Rights began work on three issues that have stumped Mississippi lawmakers for years: restoring voters’ right to sidestep the Legislature and put issues on a ballot, restoring voting rights to convicted felons and allowing people to easily vote before election day. House Speaker Jason White has tasked the bipartisan panel — one of four select committees he formed to tackle complex issues before the next legislative session — to hold public hearings on the issues and craft legislation. “Once again, the House’s legislative priorities will be clear and informed from the start as we maintain our focus and energy on preparing for the 2026 legislative session,” he wrote recently of the select committees. The Committee heard from Samantha Buckley, director of policy for the Secure Democracy Foundation. Her presentation made clear that Mississippi is far behind the curve on dealing with these three voting rights issues.
Virginia Executive Order: Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) signed an executive order last week aimed at boosting the state’s election security by directing the Department of Elections and other agencies to update safeguards that protect voter data, voting machines, and election systems from cyber threats. Youngkin’s order also calls for stronger cybersecurity protocols, regular system testing, and closer coordination with state and local election officials. The governor’s office said the move is part of a broader effort to give Virginians more confidence in the fairness and accuracy of local, state, and federal elections. The order tasks election officials with ensuring that voter data is shared securely and that ineligible voters are removed from the rolls through the expanded use of the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE database. It also requires the Virginia Fusion Center and Department of Emergency Management to conduct a statewide election preparedness exercise before early voting in a race begins to test coordination, response plans, and communication across agencies.
Wisconsin: According to Votebeat, Wisconsin Republicans are reviving a plan to let poll workers process absentee ballots on the Monday before an election, a change long sought by election officials, but blocked by a small but influential group of conservative lawmakers. This time, the proposal is tied to measures conservatives want, including regulations for ballot drop boxes and an explicit ban on clerks fixing, or curing, errors on ballots. By bundling the measures together, GOP leaders hope to finally unite their party on a plan that would shorten the wait for election results, reduce the opportunity for election misinformation, and avoid a veto by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The proposal, which Votebeat obtained in draft form from Republican Rep. Scott Krug, is set to be publicly released next week. Krug, former chair of the Assembly Elections Committee and now assistant majority leader in the Assembly, said he “will use every little ounce of political capital effort I created on elections to get Monday processing done, because that’s 90% of our problem in the state: perception.”
Legal Updates
Federal Litigation: U.S. District Judge Denise Casper has rejected the Administration’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the president’s sweeping changes to the U.S. election process, which Democratic states claim is “blatantly unconstitutional.” In a 30-page ruling, Casper found that the states sufficiently pleaded their standing and that they’d face immediate harm under the new rules, which would implement a documentary proof of citizenship voting requirement and ban counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day. The government sought to tie federal funds under the Help America Vote Act — a 2002 law aimed at making voting more inclusive, accessible and efficient — to the states’ compliance with the changes. This gives the states standing to sue, Casper said. “This potential loss of federal funding is an imminently threatened economic injury sufficient to confer standing,” the Barack Obama appointee wrote, rejecting the government’s motion to dismiss. A coalition of 19 states filed the lawsuit in Massachusetts federal court in April. They challenged an executive order from President Donald Trump that announced the new requirements, which the states say exceed the powers of the president and would disenfranchise lawful voters around the country. In her ruling, Casper didn’t make any determination on the lawfulness of the executive order, rather only if the states had the right to challenge it in court. The government argued that the states lack the ability to do so because it has yet to take any actions to enforce the new rules. The judge disagreed, citing case law from a 2007 patent case that found “where threatened government action is concerned, a plaintiff is not required to expose himself to liability before bringing suit to challenge the basis for the threat.” “The … states have alleged an injury sufficient to support standing and ripeness to challenge,” Casper wrote.
Alabama: A panel of judges at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments this week in a case over the validity of an Alabama law banning voters from receiving assistance obtaining absentee ballot applications. The dispute centers on Alabama Senate Bill 1, enacted in 2024 amid national debates on election integrity. The law bans third-party submission of absentee ballot applications except by family, household members or caregivers, and prohibits payments or gifts for assisting with applications. However, a lower court blocked the law in September 2024 after a group of nonprofits, including the NAACP’s Alabama conference, League of Women Voters chapters, Greater Birmingham Ministries and Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, sued in April 2024. Chief U.S. District Judge R. David Proctor, an appointee of George W. Bush determined that SB1’s submission and payment provisions likely violate the Voting Rights Act. Proponents of SB1 frame it as a bulwark against “ballot harvesting” fraud. As Alabama’s brief states, the law targets “election fraud, absentee voting and vulnerable voters,” citing historical risks like unauthorized collections that could coerce or manipulate ballots. The three-judge panel pressed Bowdre about the potential for severe criminal penalties — up to 20 years in prison and $30,000 in fines — for assistants who receive any payment while helping voters. U.S. Circuit Judge Robin Rosenbaum raised a specific concern about how the law might criminalize routine assistance, such as a paid health care worker helping a disabled person fill out an absentee ballot application. U.S. Circuit Judge Andrew Lynn Brasher also explored the criminal penalty issue, asking whether the law’s restrictions on economic transactions for voter assistance might be constitutionally problematic.
A lawsuit filed by a Decatur resident claiming that ballots were missing candidate names in at least two precincts has been dismissed by the Morgan County Circuit Court. The suit — which sought an injunction that would put a hold on certification — was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it can’t be refiled. The court said that the person who brought the suit, Maurice Ayers, failed to meet requirements to proceed, including missing the deadline to contest an election, naming the election winner as a defendant as required by state law, failed to pay a security fee, and did not provide verification for all of the claims presented. While the court recognized that the Ayers “demonstrated that certain witnesses may have received ballots without all the candidates’ names, the Plaintiff has failed to set out, by logic or evidence, that the outcome of the election would have been altered in any way,” and, “failed to demonstrate he or any other person will suffer irreparable harm without an injunction.” In the second count in the suit, a Petition for a Recount, the court stated that it has no jurisdiction to “order or preside over a recount under the circumstances alleged.”
Both challenges to the election results of the Prichard mayoral race have been denied by Mobile County Circuit Judge Michael Youngpeter. Citing the fact that “neither complainant even attempted to file security for costs”, Youngpeter dismissed both lawsuits because the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. The dismissal means that the uncounted provisional ballots that were turned in late by the Prichard City Clerk to the Board of Registrars, as many as 32, will remain uncounted. Martin had closed to within three votes of Jimmie Gardner for runner-up in the Mayoral race after 4 provisional ballots were counted at the canvassing one week after the election. Carletta Davis received the most votes and will now face incumbent Jimmie Gardner in the runoff election on September 23rd.
Arizona: The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes cannot enforce his ban on offensive or insulting speech at or around polling places. The court concluded that the provisions Fontes included in the Elections Procedures manual are so broad that they could criminalize unintentional conduct. Judge Kim Wardlaw, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, also said the language would outlaw any activity that has the effect of harassing, intimidating or coercing voters, regardless of whether that was the intent. And the threat of prosecution, she said, could “chill” individuals from engaging in otherwise legal political activity. “Indeed, it is inherent in the very nature of political and electoral expressive conduct that plaintiffs may not know which political issues may become relevant or offensive at the polls,” the judge wrote. “And it is inevitable that some political and election speech — matters of public concern — will have the effect of being offensive to someone.” But the judges punted on a separate question of whether Fontes can give himself the power to finalize election returns and declare winners even if the results from one or more counties are missing because their supervisors refused to certify the results. Wardlaw acknowledged that such an action, if it were to occur, could disenfranchise some Arizonan voters by leaving their votes out of the final tally. And that could change the results of some elections. She said, though, the challengers never made a clear showing that a county actually would balk at finalizing results. And that, Wardlaw wrote, meant they have no standing to contest the provision.
Florida: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has ruled that provisions of a Florida law restricting the state’s process for getting citizens’ initiatives on the ballot can go into effect. The decision issued last week overrules a lower court’s order that blocked portions of the law from being enforced while the legal challenge brought by grassroots campaigners plays out. Known as H.B. 1205, the law sets new limits on how many petitions Florida voters can collect in their effort to get a constitutional amendment on the state’s ballot, a provision punishable by a felony if voters violate it. The measure also bars non-U.S. citizens and non-Florida residents from gathering signed petitions for ballot initiatives. The citizenship and residency provisions had been blocked under a July 8 ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker. The three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit has overturned that, siding with arguments made by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ’ administration that the restrictions are needed to reform a constitutional amendment process that lawmakers claim has been tainted by fraud.
Idaho: A three-judge panel of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments this week on whether Idaho’s recent voting laws unconstitutionally target voters based on age. March For Our Lives Idaho, along with the Idaho Alliance for Retired Americans, sued Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane over House Bill 124 and House Bill 340 — legislation that passed in 2023 eliminating student identification as a valid form of ID for voter registration and at the polls. House Bill 340 created a new list of acceptable ways to prove identity and residency to register to vote and allowed the Idaho Department of Motor Vehicles to issue a no-cost voter photo ID. Attorney David Fox, arguing on behalf of March For Our Lives Idaho, said that laws were a “targeted strike on young voters.” He said the laws violate the 26th Amendment of the Constitution, which states that U.S. citizens who are 18 years or older cannot have their right to vote denied or abridged on the basis of age. Idaho Deputy Solicitor General Michael Zarian countered that the state is allowed to create reasonable restrictions on voting to ensure security, and that the laws in question “don’t place a special burden on anyone.” “Any student who would have used a student ID before is now simply in line with the rest of the electorate who has always had to go to the DMV and obtain a compliant identification,” Zarian said.
Louisiana: Lawyers representing a group of Louisiana voters challenging the creation of a second majority-Black congressional district in the state told the Supreme Court this week that a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is “inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the Constitution.” The filing came in a dispute that could lead to a major decision on voting rights and redistricting. The dispute began several years ago, when a group of Black voters filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the congressional map adopted by the Louisiana Legislature in 2022. That map contained only one majority-Black district, although nearly a third of the state’s population is Black. The Black voters contended that the 2022 map diluted the votes of Black residents. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in March. On June 27, the justices announced that they would hear arguments in the case again during the 2025-26 term; they later directed the litigants to address a specific question: whether Louisiana’s intentional creation of a second majority-Black district violates either the 14th Amendment or the 15th Amendment, which bars both the federal government and states from denying or abridging the right to vote “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Both amendments were enacted in the wake of the Civil War in an effort to establish equality for formerly enslaved persons. In briefs filed at the Supreme Court late last month, Louisiana urged the justices to leave the lower court’s ruling that struck down the 2024 map in place, telling them that it “wants out of this abhorrent system of racial discrimination.” Race-based redistricting is unconstitutional, the state wrote, even if it occurs as a result of a desire to comply with Section 2. The Black voters, by contrast, continued to defend both the 2024 map and the VRA, telling the justices that the law “is the crown jewel of civil rights legislation.” In their briefs this week, the “non-African American” voters argued that Section 2 “heavily impinges on States’ sovereign power to regulate their elections and draw congressional districts.” Moreover, they added, “remedial ‘race-based districting cannot extend indefinitely into the future.’” The voters urged the Supreme Court to send the case back to the lower court quickly with instructions to “expeditiously finish what it almost completed in early 2024: a map based on traditional redistricting principles unburdened by any VRA quota.”
Maine: The U.S. Department of Justice announced this week that it sued Maine and Oregon for declining to turn over personal voter information. “Maine has some of the best elections in the nation,” Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows said in a statement. “It is absurd that the Department of Justice is targeting our state when Republican and Democratic secretaries all across the country are fighting back against this federal abuse of power just like we are.” Maine’s Department of the Secretary of State has received no notification of the lawsuit, as of late Tuesday. No documents have yet shown up on the court record database PACER. But in a press release, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division said that it sued the two states and their respective secretaries of state for not providing information about voter list maintenance procedures and electronic copies of statewide voter registration lists. Bellows, a Democrat, has twice rejected the Trump administration’s requests for sensitive voter data, first on Aug. 8 and most recently on Sept. 8.
Mississippi: Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to sharply curtail the federal Voting Rights Act by limiting who can sue to enforce protection against racial discrimination at the ballot box. The Mississippi appeal could have significant repercussions nationwide and for the federal law that stems from the Civil Rights era. If the nation’s highest court rules in Fitch’s favor, it would mean civil rights groups could no longer bring a suit on behalf of citizens. “This direct appeal presents an important legal question that has divided the courts of appeals: whether private parties may sue to enforce section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965,” Fitch’s office writes. “The answer is no.” According to Mississippi Today, the AG’s office declined to comment on why it filed the appeal, which stems from a lawsuit brought by the Mississippi branch of the NAACP over the state’s legislative districts. The litigation resulted in a federal three-judge panel ruling last year that Mississippi’s legislative districts diluted Black-voting strength in three areas of the state. The panel, comprised of all George W. Bush-appointed judges, ordered lawmakers to redraw its districts to give Black voters in three areas of the state a fairer shot at electing candidates of their choice. Special elections for these races are currently ongoing, with the general election scheduled to happen in November.
New York: New York Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Pearlman shot down a bid from Jim Walden, a longshot ex-candidate for New York City mayor, to have his name removed from the November general election ballot. In a four-page ruling, Pearlman found that the city’s election board properly rejected Walden’s application to suspend his campaign and get pulled from the ticket. Earlier this week, the board found that Walden was three months too late. “The court only has the authority to review whether the board of elections enforced the law reasonably, not whether the law itself is reasonable,” Pearlman wrote. “Here, as the board of elections followed the law precisely as written, refusing to accept a declination of candidacy more than 3 months after the deadline for such paperwork, the court finds that the board was not arbitrary and capricious.”
North Carolina: A panel of the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that a felon voter law in North Carolina was discriminatory against Black voters despite an amendment by the Republican-controlled General Assembly to salvage it. The statute made it a crime for a convicted felon to cast a ballot before their voting rights have been restored. Critically, criminal intent was irrelevant — a person can be convicted even if they voted under the mistaken belief they were eligible to do so. The Reconstruction-era law was struck down last year by U.S. District Judge Loretta C. Biggs, a Barack Obama appointee, who wrote in an opinion that the law was “enacted with discriminatory intent” and “continues to disproportionately impact Black voters.” The Fourth Circuit reached the same conclusion. U.S. Circuit Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, a Joe Biden appointee, writes in a 25-page opinion that it’s impossible to separate the 1877 law from its racist origins. The statute does not explicitly mention race, but it was “propelled by the same wave of racism and resentment” that led to constitutional changes in the 1870s banning interracial marriage and mandating school segregation, Benjamin writes. And it continued to disproportionately impact Black voters, the court finds. Between 2015 and 2022, approximately 63% of the people who were investigated for violating the strict liability voting law were Black. Only 21 percent of the Tar Heel State population is Black.
Oklahoma: The Oklahoma Supreme Court this week unanimously rejected a challenge to a proposed ballot initiative that would open taxpayer-funded primary elections to all candidates and voters, regardless of party affiliation – paving the way for the signature petition process to begin. Oklahoma currently uses a closed partisan primary system, which denies roughly 466,000 registered independent voters a voice because they are not registered with the Democratic or Republican Party. Oklahoma United officially filed State Question 836 (SQ 836) in January. The initiative would do away with publicly funded party primaries and replace them with a nonpartisan open primary system that allows all voters and candidates, regardless of party, to participate on a single ballot. Then, the top vote-getters (in this case the top two) move on to a guaranteed general election. The initiative was challenged in court by the Oklahoma Republican Party and some of its members. They argued that the initiative summary (called the “gist”) was misleading, and the initiative threatened voters’ rights to association. In an 8-0 decision, the state Supreme Court disagreed – and ruled that the challenge was premature. “The People’s right to propose law and amendments to the Oklahoma Constitution through the initiative process is precious, and any doubt as to the legal sufficiency of an initiative petition should be resolved in its favor,” Justice Douglas Combs wrote in the court’s opinion. The campaign for SQ836 is now clear to gather petition signatures. It will need nearly 173,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot.
Oregon: The U.S. Justice Department sued Oregon and Maine for rejecting demands that the states turn over troves of personal voter information. A 22-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene names Oregon and Secretary of State Tobias Read and alleges that the state broke federal laws by failing to provide electronic copies of statewide voter registration lists and information regarding voter list maintenance procedures. In a statement, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said states can’t pick and choose which federal laws they follow. “American citizens have a right to feel confident in the integrity of our electoral process, and the refusal of certain states to protect their citizens against vote dilution will result in legal consequences,” Dhillon said. Read, a Democrat elected last year with promises to defend Oregon’s pioneering vote-by-mail system, said he looked forward to fighting the case in court. Oregon is already suing the federal government over Trump’s attempts to end mail voting, along with 36 other lawsuits. “If the president wants to use the DOJ to go after his political opponents and undermine our elections, I look forward to seeing them in court,” Read said. “I stand by my oath to the people of Oregon, and I will protect their rights and privacy.” The Justice Department said it’s alleging that Read violated federal law by refusing to share an unredacted electronic copy of the state’s voter registration list, provide information on the state’s voter list maintenance program or disclose registration information for any ineligible voters.
South Carolina: The S.C. Election Commission can turn over its voter database to the U.S. Department of Justice after the state Supreme Court on September 11 tossed a lower court injunction blocking the transfer. In the unanimous ruling, the justices found that S.C. Circuit Judge Diane Goodstein’s Sept. 2 order “falls far short” of establishing that the South Carolina resident who sued to stop the transfer would suffer “immediate and irreparable damage” if election officials surrendered the information. The Justice Department has said it needs state voter data to ensure federal election security, though critics note that widespread voter fraud has never been found in a modern American election. With the injunction lifted and the case ready to proceed on the merits, Gov. Henry McMaster’s office lauded the Supreme Court’s ruling in a comment to the S.C. Daily Gazette. In court filings, attorneys for the governor argued that turning over the data wouldn’t cause harm to South Carolinians since the federal government already has virtually all the information in one place or another, though privacy advocates noted that some of that data is shielded from Justice Department access.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker
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