Electionline Weekly June-4-2026

Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking

San Jose, California: San Jose is taking another look at ranked choice voting after the City Council rejected a proposal to adopt the idea in city elections four years ago. Amid concerns over the spiraling costs from special elections, councilmembers are considering a charter amendment that would give the city the option to use ranked choice voting in special elections held to fill sudden council vacancies. The Rules and Open Government Committee advanced the proposal May 27. It is expected to go before the full council for review June 23, and if approved could land on the November ballot. “If (ranked choice voting) had been an option during last year’s special election, the council would have had a tool that allowed for the voters of District 3 to have their voices heard, saved the city over $1 million during a tough budget year and ensured District 3 had elected representation on the city council months earlier,” Councilmember Anthony Tordillos told told San José Spotlight. The proposed change, which requires voter approval because it’s a charter amendment, would only create the option for ranked choice voting. It would still be up to city leaders to make the final call on what voting method to use for any specific special council or mayoral election. The measure would not apply to regular elections.

Colorado: House Bill 26-1113 (HB26-1113), also known as Modifications to Elections, has passed through the Colorado Capitol. The bill extends voting windows, increases the number of mail-ballot drop boxes, and extends the 100-foot radius around polling centers to prevent political interference. Now, polling centers are prohibited from closing early and may remain open longer to accommodate voters if the polling place runs out of supplies, such as ballots. It also requires ballots to be mailed earlier, so there is additional time to vote and return ballots in the event of mail delays. Higher education institutions with at least 1,000 enrolled students will have an increased number of ballot drop boxes and improve visibility of on-campus voting services and polling centers. The bill also increases flexibility and approval of leave requests for voting, and changes the rules for vacant spots for a U.S. Senator’s office.

Louisiana: Louisiana legislators gave their final approval May 29 to a congressional redistricting bill that increases the state’s Republican representation in Congress, but litigation from both sides of the aisle is likely imminent. On a party-line 28-10 vote, the state Senate gave its OK to the final version of Senate Bill 121 by Sen. Jay Morris, R-West Monroe. It keeps only a single majority-Black district among Louisiana’s six U.S. House seats. By eliminating the second Black district the legislature created two years ago, Republicans would gain another probable win in their bid to maintain control of Congress in this fall’s midterm elections. The majority-Black district retained in Morris’ bill is essentially the same one U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, D-New Orleans, won in 2022. The map removes the Black-majority district U.S. Rep. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, holds. Gov. Jeff Landry signed the bill into law a few hours after it passed.

Louisiana is one step closer to eliminating affidavit voting. State lawmakers passed a bill last week to get rid of the option. Starting in 2027, the “signature” vote would be gone. Voters without an ID will have just 48 hours to prove who they are at a government office. Under Senate Bill 319, voters without a photo ID can no longer just sign an affidavit at their polling place. Instead, they will cast a “conditional” paper ballot. To count that ballot, voters must appear in person at the registrar of voters office within 48 hours of the election. They must show an approved photo ID or two other forms of ID, like a utility bill or bank statement.

Ohio: The Senate voted this week to put a constitutional amendment before voters requiring photo ID to vote. Senators introduced the resolution just two weeks ago. A companion proposal in the House is getting similar fast-track treatment. If at least 60% of Ohio House members sign off, voters will weigh the proposal this November. Speaking after the vote, Senate President Rob McColley, predicted the easy passage if it makes it to the ballot. “It’s going to be very well supported by the voters,” McColley said, “and I expect that it will pass overwhelmingly, because this is the type of protection that voters want to see in the system. Although photo voter ID is extremely popular, the last-minute amendment push is a head-scratcher for some. Critics contend Republicans are advancing the amendment to boost turnout in an unfavorable election cycle. Republican leaders deny that’s the case. Voting rights advocates note the proposal only reiterates state law. Nothing about the current voting process would change if the amendment were to pass. But the amendment would make future changes harder, and by leaving out a statutory provision guaranteeing a free ID card, the proposal might draw legal challenges as a poll tax. Meanwhile, Ohioans pushing for greater restrictions on voting oppose the amendment because it doesn’t go far enough. They’re calling for legislation requiring absentee voters to include a photocopy of their ID along with their ballot, and worry the amendment could scuttle that effort.

Oklahoma Ballot Measure: Supporters of an initiative petition to open up Oklahoma primaries filed an objection against the Oklahoma Secretary of State, who ruled they had insufficient signatures to put it on a ballot in March. State Question 836 would have included all candidates for an office on the same ballot and allowed all registered voters to participate in primary elections, regardless of their party affiliation. Organizers collected 209,000 eligible signatures by the late January submission deadline, the petition said. That number exceeded the state’s required 172,993 signatures for the ballot measure. In March, Secretary of State Benjamin Lepak rejected 57,841 of those signatures because they failed to meet the state-required four out of five voter data points for verification. With roughly 142,000 remaining valid signatures, the ballot measure failed. “We all want more faith in our government, but trust is not built by summarily rejecting more than 57,000 signatures without providing a sufficient explanation as to their exclusion. We simply want the ability to identify which signatures were excluded so we can evaluate if they should have been counted,” Ken Setter, a SQ 836 volunteer, said in a Vote Yes 836 press release. Until the passage of a 2024 state law, signatories only had to present three of five data points, which include legal first name, legal last name, zip code, house number and date of birth, for their signatures to be considered valid. The objection argues Lepak imposed an “unconstitutional burden” on signatories by using machine processing to validate signatures and only reporting an aggregate number of matches rather than supplying evidence of the signatures thrown out.

Pennsylvania: The Senate State Government Committee has approved a bill that would eliminate satellite voting offices. Sen. Cris Dush (R-Jefferson County), who chairs the State Government committee, said expanded voting options around the state enabled voter fraud, such as “ballot stuffing” at drop boxes. Dush’s legislation, Senate Bill 599, aims to roll back measures permitted by the state Supreme Court in 2020, such as voting sites in suburban and rural areas outside of the county seat. The bill would drastically scale back the use of voting centers, where election workers can provide voters with mail-in ballots and collect them prior to Election Day. The centers allow a form of over-the-counter early voting. In a memo to colleagues seeking support for the bill, Dush said “these satellite offices are essentially functioning as polling locations.” While his memo did not outline a reason to object to that function, his bill would restrict over-the-counter vote collection to a single “primary” election office located in the county seat. County officials say that the satellite offices — along with ballot return sites where staff only collect ballots that are hand-delivered by voters — are safe and secure.

U.S. Virgin Islands: The Legislature of the Virgin Islands approved Bill No. 36-0236 as amended after senators attached four nongermane amendments related to elections. The amendments bar convicted felons and individuals convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude from holding any public office within the jurisdiction of the Virgin Islands, increase campaign donations, change early voting dates, and eliminate permit fees for political signs. The body also approved a separate bill that appropriates $400,000 to fund the Democratic primary election. The proposal also requires the supervisor of elections to establish procedures for reviewing criminal background checks and affidavits, verify candidate filings before certification, and deny certification to candidates who fail to meet eligibility requirements. Additionally, the amendment authorizes election officials to adopt rules and forms needed to implement the requirements.

Legal Updates

Federal Litigation: U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Donald Trump nominee based in Washington, D.C. declined to temporarily block Trump’s executive order that calls for restricting voting by mail. The ruling released May 28 leaves in place — at least for now — an order that tests the limits of the president’s power under the Constitution. The March executive order, issued March 31, calls for the Department of Homeland Security to work with the Social Security Administration to create lists of adult U.S. citizens in each state, and to send those lists to state election officials. It also calls for the U.S. Postal Service — a federal agency that’s independent of a president’s administration — to come up with lists of eligible voters and to only deliver mail-in ballots to people on those lists. Nichols found that it’s too early for a court to issue an emergency ruling that halts key parts of Trump’s order because those directives have not been carried out yet. “The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws. Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted,” Nichols wrote about the decision not to block the order. Nichols’ ruling comes as another federal judge is preparing to issue a decision, as soon as early June, for a similar set of lawsuits based in Boston.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston, heard arguments this week from voting rights groups and a coalition of two dozen states that want the courts to halt President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot. The plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. They also told the court that the move imposes a costly burden on state election officials to comply and would spread fear about the possibility of prosecution. “This is going to be a sea change in the way that some states administer their ballots,” said Michael Cohen, who was part of a team representing California, adding that “it will be difficult to overstate the disruption that this will cause.” The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits, argued that the plaintiffs lack standing to bring their claims. They also argued the motions are premature and that plaintiffs lack the legal basis to bring their Administrative Procedure Act claim, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations. During oral arguments, Talwani expressed concerns about whether the federal system envisioned under the executive order could be ready for the upcoming midterm elections and about the risks posed to election workers who rely on a state list that differs from the federal one. She also raised doubts about the reliability of a federal list — noting, for example, women who changed their names after getting married or someone who has moved from state to state might be missed. “Isn’t there a reasonable fear and concern on behalf of voters that they will be precluded?” Talwani asked.

Alabama: The U.S. Supreme Court this week allowed Alabama to use a 2023 congressional map, reversing a lower court’s ruling that repeatedly deemed the map racially discriminatory. In an unsigned 6-3 decision on the case known as Allen v. Milligan, the court wrote that the lower court’s map would not be “more convenient” for Alabama than the congressional map the Legislature passed in 2023. “Here, the District Court interposed itself into Alabama’s ongoing efforts to conduct its imminent 2026 congressional elections under maps that its elected representatives selected,” the justices wrote. “While federal courts should not impose changes close to an election, states are free to decide for themselves whether last-minute changes to an election are in their best interests.” Plaintiffs in the case Monday filed a 54-page brief urging the court to uphold the Northern District of Alabama District Court’s May 26 ruling that the Legislature-passed congressional map denied Black Alabamians the chance to elect a candidate of their choice. The plaintiffs argued that there was no time to reassign voters under a new map; the 2023 map intentionally discriminated against Black Alabamians; and the lower court found the map still violates Section 2 after the Callais decision. “Nothing has changed in Alabama or the record to warrant a different conclusion today. The Court should deny Alabama’s stay motion on any one or more of these independent grounds,” the brief stated. Justice Sonya Sotomayor, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the court’s opinion and warned the decision would set a precedent of chaos. “Before the Court are two paths. Down one lies an orderly election, held under a tried-and-tested congressional map that protects Black Alabamians’ right to vote and with which all voters, elections officials, and candidates alike are familiar. Down the other lies a chaotic election, held under a never-before-used congressional map that intentionally discriminates against Black Alabamians,” Sotomayor wrote. “The majority chooses the second path and disregards both democratic values and the rule of law. I respectfully dissent.”

Arizona: Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap is asking a judge to hold the county’s board of supervisors in civil contempt, escalating a longstanding and messy dispute over election control as the state primary creeps closer. Heap’s filing in Maricopa County Superior Court accuses supervisors of flouting an April 16 judgment from the same bench that ordered them to return control of several election-related functions and information technology staffers to the recorder’s office. He requested that the court compel the board to quickly adhere to the recent decision via a finding of contempt — and if supervisors then fail to comply, he asked that the court levy substantial fines and give the money to his office. Board Chair Kate Brophy McGee said in a statement that Heap’s filing “should concern every Maricopa County voter.” She added that Heap has refused to meet with the board to resolve “outstanding issues” related to administration of upcoming elections. “At every turn, Recorder Heap and his attorneys have sought confrontation rather than collaboration,” she said. “To our dedicated elections staff and poll workers, I want to assure you we have your back. To Maricopa County voters, please know the board of supervisors remains committed to ensuring an elections process that is secure, transparent, accurate and conducted fully in accordance with federal and state law.”

The Trump administration will appeal a federal judge’s ruling that barred it from demanding access to Arizona’s voter registration database, it wrote in a court filing on June 3. In the filing, Jonathon P. Hauenschild, an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice’s civil rights division, informed the trial court that an appeal would soon be filed with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. In late April, Judge Susan Brnovich rejected the DOJ’s lawsuit against Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, writing that the federal government has no right to an unredacted copy of Arizona’s voter registration database. Brnovich, who was appointed to the bench in 2018 by President Donald Trump, dismissed the case with prejudice, barring the Trump administration from refiling with a different legal theory. The Trump administration sued Fontes in January, after he refused several demands to turn over the state’s voter database. DOJ first asked Fontes to provide an unredacted electronic copy of Arizona’s voter registration rolls in July 2025. The next month, he told the Trump administration that state and federal privacy laws bar him from doing so.

Delaware: In 2024, when Fenwick Island held its last election, about one-fourth of the votes came from an “artificial entity.” In other words, human beings did not cast those ballots. Instead, those 109 votes for three Town Council seats were placed on behalf of corporations, trusts, partnerships and LLCs. And a Delaware judge has declined to stop it. In 2008 Fenwick Island changed its charter to permit any “artificial entity” registered in Delaware to vote in town elections if it owned any of the 800 residential and commercial properties. The Delaware General Assembly signed off on the new policy. The revamped charter paved the way for legal entities that only exist on paper to become an electoral force in Fenwick Island, a town with 400 full-time residents. As of October, a total of 214 artificial entities were registered to vote in Fenwick Island, constituting 12% of all registered voters, town records show. But with the 2026 elections looming, the American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware has gone to Superior Court to stop corporations, partnerships, trusts and LLCs from voting. Their Superior Court lawsuit, filed in December, sought to have the practice declared unconstitutional. “This regime unnecessarily risks the dilution of votes cast by natural persons,” the ACLU charged. “The bedrock principle of American elections is one person, one vote.” Allowing nonhumans to vote, the lawsuit charged, violates the state constitution’s guarantee of “free and equal” elections. But a judge tossed the case last month, granting the town’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit before the parties could even engage in discovery. Superior Court Judge Craig Karsnitz adopted many of Fenwick’s arguments in essentially ruling that the ACLU’s case was flawed. The judge also ventured into the realm of philosophy, asking at the outset of his 19-page opinion, “What is a ‘person?’ When one cuts to the heart of this case, that is the question.” Karsnitz also wrote that the lawsuit didn’t “allege discrimination based on race or political partisanship” or charge that the charter has “discriminatory intent to fence out natural persons.” Andrew Bernstein, the ACLU lawyer in the case, said the civil rights group is weighing an appeal to the Delaware Supreme Court.

Louisiana: Jefferson Parish Judge Raymond Steib Jr. of the 24th Judicial District Court dismissed a lawsuit filed by two candidates who were challenging the results of Kenner’s May 16 election. The decision by Steib means that the victories of incumbent Kenner Mayor Michael Glaser and incumbent District 1 Councilperson Dee Dunn will stand. Glaser is a Republican, and Dunn is a Democrat. In the lawsuit, plaintiffs Diane Schnell and David Weathersby, both Democrats, alleged that a cascade of problems, including voting machine failures, the incorrect use of provisional ballots for some voters and confusion over the rules for the state’s new, closed-party primary system “tainted” the election results and affected the outcome of the contests. In a two-page ruling, Steib dismissed Weathersby and Schnell’s joint petition, declaring it too vague and saying it “lacks the specificity required” by state law. The lawsuit named Glaser, Dunn and Louisiana Secretary of State Nancy Landry as defendants. In addition to problems with some voting machines, the plaintiffs alleged that many voters were turned away at various precincts or wrongly told they couldn’t vote in the mayoral or council races if they had no political party affiliation, according to the lawsuit.

Michigan: Two lawsuits filed in state court in mid-May, one in the state’s Court of Claims and the other in Ingham County Circuit Court, are seeking to end Michigan’s longtime ban on a practice known as fusion voting — allowing multiple parties to nominate the same candidate to be listed on the ballot. Proponents of fusion voting, which is used in just a handful of states, argue that it allows voters to cast their ballot for a party which they feel best represents their own views, even if that is not one of the two major parties, while still voting for a candidate that has legitimate electoral viability. In a fusion voting case, a candidate can be listed under as many party labels as nominate them, and then their votes under all of those parties are added together to calculate their complete vote total. In New York, for example, one of the states where fusion voting is used, a candidate can be listed under both the Democratic Party and the Working Families Party, a progressive minor political party, and the candidate will get to count the total votes cast for their name. Michigan election law currently states that “A candidate’s name shall not be placed or printed in more than 1 column on the ballot for the same office,” and that if a candidate is, in fact, nominated by multiple parties, they must choose which one they want to be listed under. But both lawsuits argue that this violates the right of freedom of association, as well as freedom of speech in terms of allowing voters to fully express their views at the ballot box. They also argue that the ban violates the state constitution’s guarantee of a fundamental right to vote.

Minnesota: The City of Oak Grove is suing Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and Anoka County election officials for the right to use paper voting rosters in the 2026 general election. The Upper Midwest Law Center shared the lawsuit May 28 on behalf of the city. Simon and Anoka County election officials blocked the city from using paper rosters, stating the county controls roster format in state and federal elections. The lawsuit alleges that Anoka County officials threatened city election personnel with criminal prosecution if they did not follow the county’s guidelines on roster format. “Oak Grove is not asking for special treatment,” stated Weston Rolf, Mayor of Oak Grove. “We are asking state and county officials to respect the authority the law already gives cities. Our community made a decision to use paper rosters in our precincts, and local election administration should not be overridden by officials outside City Hall.”

Mississippi: Judge Barry W. Ford ruled there would be a new election in the Hinds County District 2 supervisor race. This comes after former Hinds County Supervisor David Archie challenged his election loss to current Supervisor Anthony Smith. Ford said after hearing the testimony and reviewing the case, he could not determine the will of the voters, so he ordered a new election. He said the only candidates on the ballot would be Archie and Smith. Ford said he doesn’t believe fraud was involved in the case, and he said the Hinds County Election Commission was not following procedure. A date for the new election has not been determined. During his testimony, Archie said in a letter to the circuit clerk, he requested a ballot review and claimed many things were not fulfilled. He said there were missing signature sheets from precincts, missing voting machines, unsealed ballot boxes, hard drives that were not properly marked and missing accounting forms. The defense argued that there was no evidence that any of this was intentional, saying that makes claims of fraud impossible.

New Hampshire: U.S. District Judge Samantha Elliott struck down New Hampshire’s new law requiring hard-copy proof of citizenship for voter registration, finding it unconstitutional, in a move that could stop its implementation for the midterm elections. In a 98-page order, Elliott held that the law imposed an excessive burden on the right to vote. She wrote that it would particularly affect people who might not have easy access to citizenship documents, such as college students, those without passports, those who changed their name after marriage, and those born out of state. “A law that delays registration, even by one day or a few hours, is more likely to deprive qualified voters access to the ballot,” Elliott wrote. Elliott ordered the state to immediately stop enforcing the new law. Reacting to the ruling, Secretary of State Dave Scanlan confirmed his office would tell local officials to allow New Hampshire voters to register to vote without producing citizenship documents. But he said new voters will still be expected to provide documentary proof of their identity, age, and domicile when registering — issues the ruling did not address.

Wisconsin: Harry Wait, a Racine-area man who requested absentee ballots on behalf of other people to prove it could be done, was sentenced this week to three years of probation on election fraud and identity theft charges. Wait faced up to seven years in prison after being convicted of one felony and two misdemeanors in March for ordering absentee ballots on behalf of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Racine Mayor Cory Mason in 2022. Wait revealed those actions himself, saying he was trying to expose vulnerabilities in the voting system. At a sentencing hearing this week, Walworth County Judge Daniel S. Johnson handed down the probationary sentence, and no jail time, according to social media posts by Wait’s supporters and public court records. Prosecutors from the Department of Justice had requested 90 days of jail time. He has repeatedly said he does not regret his actions. In a letter Wait submitted to the court before his sentencing, he said his actions were civil disobedience and revealed “the State’s corruption and incompetence.” He said he chose Vos and Mason because they come from different political parties. They “enjoyed the spoils of a corrupt system and are not innocent victims,” he added. An attorney for Wait told WPR that he will appeal.

Wyoming: Secretary of State Chuck Gray, through the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office, filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging Wyoming’s closed primary system, filed by Jimmy Skovgard. In a statement, Gray said, “Wyoming’s primary system is vital to the integrity of Wyoming’s elections. Primary systems like Wyoming’s withstand scrutiny around the country as a basic method of choosing candidates for the general election.”

Becky Hadlock, the former Weston County clerk facing two felony charges for her conduct during and after the 2024 general election, reached a deal with prosecutors that would keep her out of prison, a new court filing shows. Under the terms of the deal, as detailed in a May 26 court filing by her attorney Ryan Semerad, prosecutors would agree to dismiss one felony and reduce the second to a misdemeanor election code violation. In exchange, Hadlock would plead guilty to the misdemeanor rather than taking the case to trial. Hadlock would not face any time behind bars, nor would she be required to serve probation, according to court filing. Instead, Semerad and Natrona County District Attorney Dan Itzen, a special prosecutor in the case, agreed to jointly recommend that Hadlock pay a $500 fine. A judge must still agree to abide by the plea deal. On May 26, Circuit Court Judge Lynda Bush ordered that a preliminary hearing set for today be canceled and gave both sides the green light to submit the plea deal and proposed sentence.

Retired Cheyenne attorney George Powers has taken his formal complaint against Secretary of State Chuck Gray alleging election code violations to the Wyoming Supreme Court, filing a petition for “Writ of Mandamus.” A “Writ of Mandamus” is typically filed to compel a government official, agency or lower court to perform a specific legal duty that has been neglected. In this case, Powers’ 48-page petition asks the court to order Wyoming Attorney General Keith Kautz and the AG’s Office to recuse themselves from investigating Powers’ complaint filed in April. n that complaint, Powers wrote that there is a “reasonable basis to believe” that Gray violated state election laws by sharing Wyoming’s registered voter information with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in August 2025. Gray disclosed unredacted election records containing confidential personal information, such as Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, tribal identification numbers and dates of birth, at the request of the DOJ. “When confronted by such a contrived misuse of the law, Secretary Gray’s duty under Wyoming law could not have been clearer,” Powers wrote. “All he had to do was to follow the state law, which he was sworn to uphold.”










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker