Electionline Weekly July 30, 2026

Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking

Federal Legislation: U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., unveiled legislation to counter the Trump administration’s “attacks on American elections” last week. The bill, called the Stop Harassment and Intimidation in Elections through Legal Defenses (SHIELD) Our Elections Act, would give state attorneys general and voters a new pathway to enforce federal anti-election interference laws. It would also extend the time limit for bringing federal criminal prosecutions of these laws from five to nine years. “Our elections belong to the voters, and I am fighting to protect every eligible voter’s right to cast a ballot freely and sending a warning that anyone who interferes with our democracy will be held accountable — sooner or later,” Padilla said in a statement. Among other election safeguards, the SHIELD Our Elections Act would strengthen protections against ballot seizure and authorizes a voluntary grant program to support states with mail and absentee tracking programs. Padilla’s office called these measures a “proactive federal response to the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on voting rights and election administration ahead of the 2026 midterms.” The legislation follows the recent passage of California’s SB 73, which prevents election interference at the state level.

Kern County, California: Kern County is preparing to shift election administration away from the Auditor-Controller-County Clerk’s Office and place it under a separately appointed registrar of voters, a step toward alleviating years of complaints about sluggish vote counting. The Kern County Board of Supervisors introduced an ordinance this week establishing a standalone Department of Elections. The ordinance would give the new department responsibility for administering federal, state and local elections throughout Kern County. The department would maintain voter-registration records, manage precincts and election logistics, oversee candidate filings and campaign disclosures, and report election results. The registrar of voters would be appointed by and report directly to the Board of Supervisors. The registrar would also be exempt from the county’s civil service system. According to the county’s recruitment materials, the new Elections Department will have 21 employees and an annual budget of approximately $7.1 million. The registrar position pays between $159,839 and $191,031 annually, depending on qualifications. The benefits package also includes a $599 monthly vehicle allowance. Kern County combined its auditor-controller, county clerk and registrar of voters positions in 1995, placing responsibility for elections under one elected official.

Aspen, Colorado Ballot Measure: The Aspen City Council agreed during a work session this week to ask voters whether they want to move Aspen’s odd-year March municipal elections to November in even years. Moving the city’s elections to November could increase voter turnout and reduce the burden on the city clerk’s office, which manages the election for about six months every two years, City Clerk Nicole Henning first told the city council in November 2024. The city council briefly discussed the possibility of moving the municipal election last year, but council members had not discussed the possibility in depth until the Monday work session. They all agreed to pose the question to voters, but will vote on official ballot language — including what a runoff system would look like and how to stagger terms during the transition — in August. Aspen voters approved a referendum in 2018 that moved municipal elections from May to March. A group of citizens argued at the time that the municipal election being held on the first Tuesday of May resulted in lower turnout because it took place when city occupancy is at its lowest point of the year. Aspen Citizens for Democracy, the committee behind the 2018 referendum, said moving the election to the high season would improve voter turnout.

Madison County, Illinois Ballot Measure: Madison County voters will be asked in November’s ballot if they think Illinois should require identification to vote in elections. The county board recently voted 17-2 to place a nonbinding referendum on the ballot. While supporters of the advisory referendum say it’s a way to measure voter sentiment on a timely issue, critics of the referendum equate the question to President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act. The question to Madison County voters reads: “Shall the Illinois General Assembly pass legislation to require government-issued identification to vote?” Even if the referendum passes in November, Illinois’ legislature, controlled by Democratic supermajorities, will not likely pass such a measure. In 2024, 56.5% of Madison County voters approved an advisory referendum that asked them about splitting from the Chicago area and forming a new state.

East Lansing, Michigan Ballot Measure: A group of East Lansing residents submitted a petition to the City Clerk’s Office Monday seeking to place a proposal on the November ballot that would move City Council elections to even-numbered years, a change supporters say would boost voter turnout. Adam DeLay, an informal leader of the petition group, told East Lansing Info that 1,167 certified signatures are needed to place the initiative on the November ballot. The group submitted more than 1,400 to the clerk’s office to verify. If the effort is successful, it would have a profound impact on local elections, as far fewer people vote in odd-year elections, when City Council elections may be the only race on the ballot. In the November 2025 City Council election, about 6,300 ballots were cast, compared to more than 17,500 votes cast in the November 2024 election, according to data on the Ingham County Clerk’s Office. “Our view is that you have 6,000 residents shaping the politics of more than 60,000, which includes full- and part-time residents,” DeLay said

New Jersey: Gov. Mikie Sherrill has signed legislation ensuring that New Jerseyans who work the polls will not lose unemployment benefits because of their election-related wages, a move aimed at making it easier for counties to recruit the temporary workers needed to run elections. The bipartisan measure, A1516, removes compensation earned by temporary election workers from the calculation used to determine unemployment benefits. Sherrill signed the bill on July 22, and it took effect immediately. Under the new law, services performed by temporary workers hired by county election boards –including those staffing polling places during early voting and on Election Day or helping process mail-in ballots — will no longer be classified as employment under the state’s unemployment compensation law. Previously, those wages could reduce an individual’s unemployment check, leaving some recipients with little financial incentive to accept temporary election work. Supporters say eliminating that penalty will expand the pool of available poll workers at a time when county election officials routinely face challenges filling shifts, particularly for early voting and the long hours required on Election Day. “This bill sends a clear message that participating in our democracy shouldn’t come at a cost,” said State Sen. Kristin Corrado (R-Totowa), one of the bill’s Senate sponsors. “Counties rely on committed poll workers to ensure every vote is counted during early voting, on Election Day, and when processing mail-in ballots, yet too many people are discouraged from stepping up due to the risk of losing their unemployment benefits.” Corrado said protecting those benefits would encourage greater civic participation while strengthening New Jersey’s election system.

North Carolina: The North Carolina Senate Elections Committee advanced a pair of election law bills, drawing mixed reactions from voting rights advocates.

The first bill, House Bill 834, received mostly praise, as it extends the period during which voters are able to cure problems on their ballots from three business days after the election to five business days after the election, among other reforms. And it allows voters whose driver’s license expiration was put on hold last year to continue using them as valid voter IDs. But that bill also expands the number of forums for challenges to State Board of Elections decisions, which are currently heard in Wake County Superior Court, by also allowing them to be brought in the superior court of the county where the petitioner resides — a change that advocates say would allow judge-shopping and could lead to an increase in frivolous challenges to lawful votes. Lawmakers on the Senate Elections Committee removed the original language of H834, which would have allowed hunting and fishing license applicants to also register as organ donors or voters, replacing it with this new set of proposals. This version of the bill has not yet been considered by the House. That bill passed the Elections Committee without any opposition.

According to NC Newsline, by contrast, House Bill 958 has been the subject of controversy for months, sparking protests in the House committees in which it was heard, leading to the ejection of members of the public from a hearing. But much of that bill’s language was stripped out by the Senate, with their version cut down to 16 pages from the House’s original 37. Sen. Warren Daniel (R-Burke), who introduced the bill, said he hopes to safeguard and streamline the state’s elections processes, highlighting sections such as a requirement for an attestation that a voter is a U.S. citizen when registering to vote. That provision, among the most contentious kept intact by the Senate, requires the state Board of Elections to vet voter rolls against federal noncitizen registries such as the USCIS SAVE database, which is known to have significant errors that have caused thousands of lawful voters to be wrongly flagged in other states. The Senate also kept in place a requirement for post-election audits by the state auditor, with all county boards of elections undergoing an audit at least once every six years. These may only occur after the election has been certified and cannot be used to challenge election results. A Senate addition to the bill shortens the early voting period before primary elections to 10 days. Like the new ballot curing deadline, it would also extend the deadline for challenging early and absentee ballots to five business days after the election. Senators removed a requirement for a “uniform statewide audit” after each election for any ballots that are ineligible “as evidenced by official government database records.” They also excised one of the most controversial sections of the bill, which would have imposed new restrictions on military and overseas voters.

Legal Updates

U.S. Supreme Court: The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a ruling that in nearly half of U.S. states halted President Donald Trump’s executive order to create a federal list of eligible voters and limit delivery of mail ballots only to people on that list. The ruling rejected the Trump administration’s effort to move forward with the mail-in voting restrictions in 23 U.S. states that sued ahead of November’s midterm elections. Trump issued an executive order in March for the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the commissioner of the Social Security Administration to create a “state citizenship list” of eligible voters. It also ordered the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to people on that list. While Trump touted the proposed changes as safeguards to keep non-U.S. citizens from voting, state election officials argued they were ripe for abuse and could cause chaos. Democratic officials in 23 states and the District of Columbia challenged Trump’s order in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Boston. They argued that Trump’s order was unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the authority to set election rules. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, agreed and halted Trump’s order from being implemented for the Nov. 3 elections — but only in the states that have sued. On July 27, the Administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to fully implement an executive order signed by Trump that seeks to impose additional restrictions on mail-in voting. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer called an order by a federal judge in Massachusetts that paused portions of the order in 23 states and the District of Columbia “extraordinary,” and he argued that it “flouts settled” doctrines governing when courts can weigh in on a dispute. Sauer also asked the court to issue an immediate administrative stay – an order that temporarily puts the lower court’s order on hold while the justices consider the government’s request. A dozen Republican-led states joined the Supreme Court fight asking the justices to fully enforce an executive order. Republican states filed an emergency application at the Supreme Court July 29 seeking to block the lower court ruling, arguing states have a concrete interest in ensuring the mail-in ballots cast by their voters are securely delivered and counted. “Allowing the federal government to promulgate final rules advancing election integrity reforms enhances the ability of states to ensure the security of mail voting within their jurisdictions,” the Republican states, led by Missouri, wrote. “And state defendants cannot themselves implement some of these commonsense proposed reforms — such as improved USPS delivery systems for election mail.”

Federal Litigation: A D.C. Circuit panel rejected an effort by Democrats to block President Donald Trump’s executive order seeking to reshape the nation’s election system by creating a national list of eligible voters and limiting mail-in voting. The three-judge panel upheld U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols’ May 28 decision denying a preliminary injunction after determining the Democratic National Committee and congressional leaders failed to show any imminent or irreparable harm, as neither the Department of Homeland Security or the U.S. Postal Service had yet acted. U.S. Circuit Judges Patricia Millett, Robert Wilkins and Gregory Katsas — two Barack Obama appointees and a Trump appointee, respectively — wrote in a per curiam order that while there may be a “number of serious questions concerning the lawfulness of proposed actions if implemented,” the court cannot rule until those actions occur. “In addition, the executive order, which is itself not self-executing, directs the agencies to act only to ‘the extent feasible and consistent with applicable law, including but not limited to the Privacy Act of 1974,’ and so requires compliance with the very legal limitations about which plaintiffs are concerned,” the panel wrote. “If the defendant agencies take steps to implement the executive order in a manner that violates federal law or the Constitution, plaintiffs can promptly seek relief, which the district court and this court can decide in as expeditious a manner as circumstances require.”

Over two dozen states took on the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA, filing suit over new election and immigration requirements to receive grants from the federal government. DHS and FEMA violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the spending clause in the U.S. Constitution, the states argued, by imposing new election- and immigration-related requirements to receive billions in anti-terrorism and emergency response funds. The agencies are attempting to leverage the funds to “coerce” states into adopting the Trump administration’s preferred policies, the states said in their suit. Twenty-five states — including California, Colorado, Arizona and Washington — and the District of Columbia filed suit in Rhode Island, claiming the change in requirements was retaliation after FEMA and DHS were unsuccessful in cutting federal funding from states they felt opposed the administration’s immigration agenda in a prior legal case. The new election requirements are unlawful, “arbitrary and capricious” and ignore investments states have already made in election infrastructure, the plaintiffs said, adding states cannot comply with vague election guidelines DHS has not yet adopted. “The election conditions impose conditions unrelated to the federal funding they encumber, requiring states to comply with specific policies regarding voter eligibility and vote tabulation as a condition for obtaining millions of dollars in funding to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks,” the plaintiffs said in their suit.

Arizona: Maricopa County Superior Court Adele Ponce rejected a legal challenge to Proposition 144, a constitutional amendment Republican lawmakers put on the November ballot. The measure would: Require all voters, including those voting by mail, to present identification before casting a ballot; Enshrine in the Arizona Constitution that only U.S. citizens may vote, a requirement already established in state law; Restrict foreign nationals from spending money to influence Arizona elections; Allow ballots to be counted at individual polling places rather than transported to centralized tabulation centers; and Affirm lawmakers’ authority to pass future election laws aimed at ensuring timely, accurate and secure elections.T empe City Councilman Randy Keating argued the proposal violates the Arizona Constitution because it combines unrelated issues into a single ballot measure, preventing voters from considering each proposal individually. He pointed to court precedents requiring constitutional amendments to be “sufficiently related to a common purpose or principle” to form “a consistent and workable whole.” But Ponce concluded that the measures are “topically related” and “sufficiently interrelated.” “Each aims to improve election integrity,” the judge said. “The fact that the proposed amendment’s provisions address different aspects of election security does not prevent them from being topically related.” An appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court already has been filed.

California: Californians for Voter ID, Yes on 39 and an Orange County voter filed suit July 27 against California’s secretary of state and attorney general over a change to the wording of a ballot initiative that will be decided in November’s election. Proposition 39 seeks to impose identification requirements for Golden State voters. If approved, voters would have to show government-issued ID at the polls, or provide the last four digits of a government-issued ID number when voting by mail. Additionally, California would have to provide voter ID cards when requested, and elections officials would have annual reporting requirements, showing the percentage of each county’s voters whose citizenship they’ve verified. No ID is currently required at the state’s polls. The plaintiffs filed suit in Sacramento County Superior Court over a change Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office made to the measure’s title and summary. Initially, it stated the proposition “Establishes additional voter identification and citizenship verification requirements.” Bonta’s office changed it to: “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.” “That statement is not a true and impartial statement of the measure’s purpose,” the plaintiffs write in their complaint. The plaintiffs are asking a judge to require the state to amend or strike the challenged language and have the secretary of state include the new language in the voter information guide. Alternatively, they want the phrase “prohibits citizens from voting” removed. They also want the suit resolved quickly, as election deadlines loom.

Kansas: On the eve of the deadline to request a mail-in ballot for the August 4 primary, a decision handed down from the Kansas Court of Appeals reinstates the three-day grace period for mail-in ballot returns. The appeals court denied the secretary of state’s request to keep legislation in place that overturned the allowance of the three-day grace period. On July 16, a Douglas County court blocked Senate Bill 4, the law to end the mail-in-ballot grace period. That law, passed in the 2025 legislative session, was scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1, but there hasn’t been a major statewide election in the state this year ahead of the Aug. 4 primary. Secretary of State Scott Schwab, also a Republican gubernatorial candidate, sought to appeal the court’s reversal, contending that his office “conducted his campaign throughout 2026 to educate voters about the elimination of the previous three-day window.” “[Schwab] argues that the district court’s temporary injunction will confuse voters about the correct deadline and asks this court to enter the fray to clarify that issue,” the Kansas Court of Appeals summarized in its order that denied the appeal. “He also notes that the advance-voting ballots that were mailed to voters earlier this month state that those ballots must be received by Election Day (not within a window of three days after Election Day). He argues that the district court’s temporary injunction will confuse voters about the correct deadline and asks this court to enter the fray to clarify that issue.” The opposition to the secretary of state’s appeal to uphold Senate Bill 4 points to the decision from the Douglas County District Court that the change to eliminate the three-day grace period for mail-in ballots “likely violates the Kansas Constitution protections relating to equal protection of the law, due process and voting,” the court of appeals recalled. “The plaintiffs also note that an emergency stay of the temporary injunction would have the effect of potentially rejecting advance-voting ballots that would otherwise be counted if the injunction remains in effect,” the appeals court said.

Kentucky: District Judge Claria Horn Boom dismissed a case from the U.S. Department of Justice against Kentucky election officials that sought to gain access to voter registration data, including sensitive information such as driver’s license and Social Security numbers. Horn Boom cited a recent ruling regarding Michigan voter data from the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. The DOJ later asked the 6th Circuit to rehear the Michigan case. Under the second Trump administration, the DOJ sued numerous states, including Kentucky, for access to sensitive voter data arguing it was entitled to the information under the the Civil Rights Act of 1960. With the precedent from the appeals court, Boom wrote that Kentucky’s voter registration list “is not a record or paper subject to Title III of the Civil Rights Act.” She was appointed to the bench by Trump during his first term. Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, and members of the Kentucky State Board of Elections were named as defendants in the lawsuit, which was filed in February in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Kentucky. “We have won our case in federal court on protecting voter privacy,” Adams said on X. “Kentucky’s elections are secure, and so is your personal information.”

New Jersey: U.S. District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi dismissed a Trump administration suit seeking New Jersey voters’ addresses, driver’s license numbers, birth dates, partial Social Security numbers, and a host of other private data. Quraishi said a requirement in federal law that mandates election officials turn over some types of records to the federal Election Assistance Commission upon request does not extend to New Jersey’s digital voter registration system. New Jersey’s computerized statewide voter list “is not a record or paper that the state must produce to the United States,” he wrote in a 17-page ruling. Quraishi’s ruling comes about a week after Gov. Mikie Sherrill announced that about 6,600 individuals who marked themselves as noncitizens had been registered to vote between June 2023 and June 2024, and approximately 400 of them went on to cast ballots. The news resulted in a fresh round of voter fraud complaints from Republicans in New Jersey and nationwide. The federal government this week argued to Quraishi that the revelation bolstered its claims in the lawsuit, which it filed back in February. Quraishi acknowledged that argument but dismissed it in a footnote as irrelevant to the case. “Whether DOJ is acting in good faith is not relevant to this court’s analysis and has no bearing on whether plaintiff is entitled to the information it seeks,” he wrote. Quraishi, a Biden appointee, dismissed the case with prejudice, which bars the administration from refiling, though it can still appeal his ruling. “We disagree with the court’s decision and will appeal,” a Department of Justice spokesperson said in an unsigned statement.

North Carolina: Former New Hanover County elections director DeNay Harris is asking a judge to overturn her termination. Harris filed a petition for judicial review July 10 in Wake County Superior Court against the New Hanover County Board of Elections and the state board, arguing her firing was retaliatory and violated her rights under the North Carolina Constitution. She is seeking reinstatement to her old position, back pay and benefits, damages exceeding $25,000, attorneys’ fees and other relief. “The New Hanover County Board of Elections determined that it was preferable to ignore North Carolina law,” the petition reads. “The actions and omissions of the New Hanover County Board of Elections and North Carolina State Board of Elections deprived Ms. Harris of her constitutional rights by terminating her employment.” JHarris was unanimously hired by the county elections board Jan. 13 and started Feb. 3. According to the petition, on March 3 — the day of the primary election — Harris emailed the board about what she described as unauthorized access to ballots and election equipment. The next day, County Manager Chris Coudriet pushed back in an email Harris characterizes as a threat to withhold county resources. The county elections board filed a petition for her removal March 24. State elections Executive Director Sam Hayes terminated Harris on May 20, and the decision became final June 9.

Tennessee: A three-judge federal panel has allowed Tennessee to use a new congressional map that splits apart a majority-Black district in Memphis. The panel declined to issue a preliminary injunction against the new districts, paving the way for them to be used in the Aug. 6 primary elections. Tennessee had revised its congressional districts in May, shortly after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling weakened federal Voting Rights Act protections for minorities. Opponents of Tennessee’s new congressional districts had argued in court that Republican lawmakers who passed the plan were motivated at least partly by racial discrimination, in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Republicans have insisted they were motivated only by partisan politics, seeking to win the lone Democratic-held seat among the state’s nine districts. Legislatures are free to draw partisan districts under a 2019 Supreme Court ruling. The federal judges — two Trump appointees and one appointee of former President Barack Obama — wrote in their opinion that the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed because the plaintiffs “lack any direct evidence of racial motivation.” “The road to a reliably 9-0 map runs through Memphis,” the ruling states. “Thus, political motivations readily explain the map’s dilutive effects.”

Wisconsin: Dane County Judge David Conway rejected a request from Democratic voters to allow people to “spoil” and re-cast their absentee ballots for any reason. Under state law, voters can spoil ballots that are damaged or if they believe they made a mistake in filling out the ballot. Earlier this month, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 4-2 to publish guidance stating that the process wasn’t available to people who simply wished to change their vote. The voters argued the guidance should be thrown out to accommodate people who may have already cast a vote in this year’s August primaries before their preferred candidate dropped out. The ballot for the Democratic primary for governor includes two candidates, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation CEO Missy Hughes, whose names appear even though both have suspended their campaigns. In a ruling, Conway rejected the injunction request from the voters, finding that “the unambiguous language of the statute does not allow a voter to spoil an absentee ballot after it is returned.”










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker

Electionline Weekly July 9, 2026

Ballot Measures, Legislation & Rulemaking

Federal Legislation: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) announced June 29 that he plans to use an unusual maneuver to merge the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act with the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) after conservatives ground the House to a halt over the voter ID bill. Hard-line conservatives have said they would oppose any procedural rules that tee up debate and a final vote on legislation until the Senate passes the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections and the presentation of an ID to cast a ballot, or until the House takes further action to force the issue. According to The Hill, Johnson said that he will use a process called “MIRVing,” in which a procedural rule directs separately passed legislation to be packaged together and sent to the Senate. “We’re going to pass a MIRV, or what’s better known as a ‘merge onto the rule.’ So what that means is, when Republicans vote for the rule, they’ll be voting not just for the NDAA and everything else in there, but they’ll be voting to merge onto that the SAVE America Act we passed back in February,” Johnson said. “So that will send both of those items together over to the Senate, and so if any Republicans choose to vote against the rule, they will be voting against that outcome. So we think this is another good way to show the resolve of the House,” he added. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) who submitted an amendment to the House Rules Committee to attach the SAVE America Act to the NDAA, quickly came out against Johnson’s plan. “’MIRVing’ the NDAA plus either SAVE America or Voter I.D. would still allow the Senate to strip out either or. The only way to ensure the Senate passes this is to make sure it’s in the bill text of the NDAA, meaning that my amendment(s) must be made an order. I’m not trying to be difficult, but this is what 80% of Americans want and what we promised the American people, so I stand by my decision,” Luna wrote on the social platform X.

Arizona Ballot Measure: A campaign to ask voters to enshrine the right to vote by mail into the Arizona Constitution has failed to gather enough signatures to make it on the November ballot. The political action committee behind the campaign, Protect the Vote Arizona, announced a day before the deadline that its 2,000 volunteers had gathered 439,000 signatures, not enough to withstand inevitable challenges to and disqualifications of thousands of those signatures. Spokeswoman Stacy Pearson said the campaign would instead focus on a legal challenge to the Republican ballot referral that Protect the Vote Arizona was created to compete with in November. With a requirement to gather 383,923 valid voter signatures before the July 2 deadline, Protect the Vote Arizona’s Free, Fair and Secure Elections Act faced an uphill battle since volunteers began collecting signatures in the spring. The ballot initiative was filed with the secretary of state in March and had only gathered 50,000 signatures as of May 6. “Facing an impossible 88 percent validity requirement, the campaign made a strategic decision to not turn over the signatures of hundreds of thousands of mail-in voting supporters to the very election-denying politicians (i.e. Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap) that this measure was designed to protect against,” Stacy Pearson, spokeswoman for the campaign, said in a statement.

Los Angeles: The Los Angeles City Council reversed course on a high-profile ballot proposal to expand voting rights for noncitizens. Council members unanimously held off on a Nov. 3 ballot measure that would have asked voters to create a pathway for noncitizens — possibly green-card holders and recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — to vote in city and school board elections. Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez was the chief proponent of the proposal to expand noncitizen voting rights in L.A. But he announced he would join his colleagues in withdrawing the proposal, saying he had been hearing concerns from members of the Black community. MPAC Los Angeles, or Mobilizing Preachers and Communities, sent Soto-Martínez a letter on Sunday saying his proposal could “unintentionally expose vulnerable residents to greater scrutiny, political attacks, and fear.”

Florida: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has vetoed legislation that would have allowed high school students to earn scholarships by volunteering at polling locations — and he’s citing the support of a progressive civil rights organization loathed by conservatives as a reason for rejecting it. Debate about the bill (HB 461) during the committee process was devoid of any controversy, and it passed unanimously in both the House (108-0) and the Senate (37-0). The House version was sponsored by Republicans Kiyan Michael and Susan Valdés, of Jacksonville and Tampa, respectively, and in the Senate by Jacksonville Republican Clay Yarborough. Another Republican, Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland, was a key figure pushing for the measure. Speaking during a Senate committee meeting in January, he said he conceived of the idea when helping his grandson look over options for him to fulfill community service hours, but none involved civic matters. “Why can’t they learn about elections?” Holland said. “And why can’t we find something that gets young people involved in elections and inspires them maybe to be a poll-worker in the future?” Among the organizations supporting the measure were the League of Women Voters of Florida, Common Cause, and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). It was public support from that group that the governor noted in his veto message, saying that could potentially lead to a violation of a state law that bans any specific polling location from having poll workers from only one political party. “While the House and Senate sponsors had a noble intent in filing the bill, the application of the bill may result in an avenue for polls to be staffed with volunteers that may not be subject to Florida’s prohibition on single party registered poll workers for general elections,” DeSantis wrote. “Given the bill received support in committee by representatives of the Southern Poverty Law Center, this may indeed be the consequence of the legislation.”

Georgia Rulemaking: The State Election Board has passed a rule aimed at granting board members access to the secretary of state’s election night hub, defying a warning from the attorney general’s office that such a rule would exceed the board’s authority. The measure passed in a 3-2 vote, with three Republican-aligned members voting to adopt the rule and the sole Democratic appointee and the chairman opposing it. The board also passed a separate rule aimed at defining what counts as a vote and how those votes should be tallied. The proposed rule was introduced by board member Salleigh Grubbs, who also serves as the first vice chair of the Georgia Republican Party. It coincides with an ongoing legal effort to give parties, board members and poll watchers access to the state’s emergency operations center, where the secretary of state’s election night reporting activities are conducted. No ballot counting takes place on site and the hub is not a polling place, early voting location or tabulation center, which the attorney general’s office has said exempts the area from state laws requiring poll watchers to have access to the areas where votes are being counted. “We’re not saying that anything that goes on there is nefarious or bad, but we want to make sure that the process is so clean that it couldn’t occur,” said newly-appointed board member Carolyn Roddy.

Michigan: State Sen. Jonathan Lindsey has introduced legislation to reinstate certain absentee voting standards that would place the responsibility to register with voters and with local clerks to verify their information. Lindsey’s legislation, Senate Bill 1054, would restore the previously existing categories that qualified a voter to receive an absentee ballot. These categories would include physical disability, religious obligation, election inspector duties, being 60 or older, or absence from your polling location during voting, for instance, serving in the military. Lindsey says “This bill would restore sensible standards to Michigan’s absentee ballot process, “I believe people should have a sound reason to vote absentee. Universal, no-questions-asked absentee ballots open the door for fraud and errors, undermine our election day process and civic engagement, and make it more difficult for Michiganders to cast their ballots in private or without third-party influence.”

New Jersey: Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed the John R. Lewis Voter Empowerment Act of New Jersey into law, making New Jersey the tenth state to enact its own voting rights law. The new law, named for the late Georgia congressman and civil rights leader John R. Lewis, was approved by the Legislature on June 30 along party lines after months of debate and amendments. The legislation was sponsored in the Senate by Senate President Nick Scutari, Senate President Pro Tempore Shirley Turner (D-Lawrence), and Sen. Joe Cryan (D-Union). Assemblywoman Verlina Reynolds-Jackson (D-Trenton) was the Assembly prime sponsor. The law declares it to be New Jersey’s public policy to encourage participation by all eligible voters and ensure that members of protected classes, including racial, color, and language-minority groups, have an equal opportunity to participate in the political process. It directs courts to interpret voting laws liberally to protect the right to vote and ensure equitable access to voter registration and elections. Scutari said the legislation is intended to preserve confidence in New Jersey’s election system. The law prohibits state agencies, local election offices, and political subdivisions from adopting voting qualifications, election procedures, or policies that deny or abridge the voting rights of protected classes or create material disparities in voting opportunities. It also establishes standards for claims involving alleged vote dilution resulting from election methods and authorizes courts to order remedies for violations. The statute expands language-access requirements. Political subdivisions that meet specified population thresholds must provide ballots, election notices, instructions, voter information, and other election materials in designated languages in addition to English. They also must provide bilingual election workers when available. The Attorney General will determine which jurisdictions qualify for additional language assistance using census or comparable government data. The bill originally would have created an independent Division of Voting Rights, but that provision was removed before final passage. The law also establishes a preclearance process requiring certain covered political subdivisions to obtain approval from the Attorney General before implementing specified election-related changes. Covered jurisdictions are identified under criteria set forth in the statute. Additional provisions require greater public participation in municipal and county redistricting in covered jurisdictions. They include multiple public hearings before and after draft maps are released, outreach to non-English-speaking communities, publication of proposed maps and explanatory reports, and additional opportunities for public comment before final adoption. The act also creates a process allowing prospective plaintiffs to notify political subdivisions of alleged violations before filing suit, giving local governments an opportunity to take corrective action. Under certain circumstances, plaintiffs who successfully prompt remedial action may recover up to $50,000 in documented costs associated with preparing their claims, subject to periodic adjustment.

North Carolina: Democratic state lawmakers proposed a constitutional amendment that would guarantee North Carolinians at least 14 days of in-person early voting for each election. That’s after Republican senators introduced legislation that would shorten the state’s current early voting period. House Bill 1240, sponsored by Rep. Rodney Pierce (D-Halifax), would create a constitutional right to vote early in person in primary and general elections held in even-numbered years. The proposal would require at least 14 days of early voting and preserve same-day voter registration during the early voting period. It also would set minimum hours for early voting sites while leaving county election boards in charge of selecting sites and staffing. The proposal comes weeks after Republican senators introduced Senate Bill 1084, which would reduce North Carolina’s early voting period from 17 days to 10. Republican lawmakers have said a shorter early voting period would reduce staffing and administrative demands on county election offices. More than 4.2 million North Carolinians cast ballots during the 2024 general election’s early voting period, accounting for nearly three-fourths of all votes cast, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

A divided state House approved an elections bill that clears a path for more ballot challenges, election audits, and registration removals. Democrats roundly criticized House Bill 958, saying it will make unfounded voter challenges more likely, sow confusion, inject partisanship into election administration, and make it harder for eligible voters to have their votes count. “You don’t know the fear of having a government agency coming in and turning your life upside down,” said House Democratic Leader Robert Reives (D-Chatham). The House approved the bill in a party-line 66-47 vote. It now goes to the Senate for consideration. Under the bill, the N.C. Board of Elections would be able to hire private attorneys to represent them, bypassing the office of Democratic state Attorney General Jeff Jackson. And state election lawsuits would no longer automatically be heard in Wake County.

Rhode Island Rulemaking: Regulations approved by a 4-0 vote of the Rhode Island Board of Elections at its meeting July 7 codify and add detail to the process and protections for early voting, available at designated locations 20 days before primary and general elections. Early voting was enshrined in state law under the 2022 Let RI Vote Act. But the law does not specify how local boards of canvassers and municipal clerks should carry out the early voting process for the thousands of voters who choose to cast ballots early. The 14-page guidance adopted this week fills the gap, tackling voter identification, ballot submission and tabulation, security and voter conduct. The rules are nearly identical to what’s already on the books for polling places on Election Day. “The state board, and local boards, were looking for some sort of structure and rules around conduct of early voting so it can be a more formalized process, and more uniform,” Miguel Nunez, elections board executive director, said in an interview with the Rhode Island Current. The adopted regulations will now be submitted to the Rhode Island Department of State for formal enactment. Early voting for the Sept. 9 state primaries begins on Thursday, Aug. 20.

South Dakota Rulemaking: Under state law, any “interested person” can petition state boards to change administrative rules. But South Dakota citizens and organizations don’t qualify as “persons” under that chapter of state law. The existence of that limitation surprised some members of the state Board of Elections on Wednesday during a meeting called for the express purpose of voting to advance or defeat a rules package the body spent two hours pondering last week. The League of Women Voters leaned on what it believed to be its right to petition state board earlier this month when it offered the board a series of rule changes the group argued were necessary to standardize the administration of a new state law that requires first-time voter registrants to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. The board dismissed the petition in a 5-2 vote after one of the board members told the group that the advocacy nonprofit lacks the legal standing to ask for the changes.

Legal Updates

U.S. Supreme Court: In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled against Republicans’ attack on mail-in ballots shoring up election rules in over a dozen states ahead of the midterms. Nearly 30 states and the District of Columbia allow at least some ballots that are cast by Election Day to be counted if they are received soon after that. In 2020, the Mississippi Legislature enacted one such law, permitting absentee ballots to be counted as long as they were postmarked on or before the date of the election and received by the registrar no more than five business days after the election. The Republican National Committee argued that in practice, Mississippi’s law meant the election no longer ended on Election Day. But in a 5-4 opinion, the high court majority held the committee’s argument conflicts with the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which requires states to let absent military and overseas voters cast absentee ballots in federal elections — and, as a backup, establishes a federal absentee voting system. The justices held that federal statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days afterward. They also affirmed that nothing in the federal statutes requires ballots to be received by Election Day. “In sum, the Election Day statutes require the electorate’s choice to be made on Election Day. That occurs so long as Election Day is the deadline for individuals to vote — as it is in Mississippi,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote for the majority. “But the Election Day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, so they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked before Election Day yet received afterward,” the Donald Trump appointee added. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the opinion, along with justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Roberts was appointed by George W. Bush, Sotomayor and Kagan by Barack Obama, and Jackson by Joe Biden.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider a case that could decide whether the state can require Arizonans to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote and if it can purge voter rolls in the months leading up to an election. The high court’s decision in the case, which could come before the 2028 presidential election, could impact similar laws in other states that also face legal challenges. The case originated in 2022 when a group of voting rights organizations, including Mi Familia Vota and Living United for Change in Arizona, challenged two new laws signed by then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican. The laws would ban voters who don’t provide proof of citizenship from voting by mail and in presidential elections. It would require more frequent and extensive checks of voter rolls for noncitizens, and subsequent purges.

Federal Litigation: U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani has halted President Donald Trump’s executive order that sought to create a federal voter list and limit who can receive a mail ballot. Talwani, who was nominated by Democratic President Barack Obama, sided with a coalition of nearly two dozen states that challenged the Republican president’s order in granting a summary judgment. Her ruling applies to this year’s midterm election cycle. Plaintiffs argued in two lawsuits, both filed in federal court in Boston, that Trump’s order should be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. The judge agreed, saying in her ruling that the provisions of Trump’s order seeking to create a federal list of eligible voters and using the U.S. Postal Service to determine who can receive a mail ballot are “legally void” because they “unconstitutionally violate the separation of powers.” The White House stood by Trump’s executive order and indicated the administration would appeal the ruling. The order, said spokeswoman Abigail Jackson, “lawfully protects our elections, and we are confident that we will ultimately prevail in its implementation.” The administration, in its motions to dismiss the lawsuits challenging the order, argued that the motions were premature and that plaintiffs lacked the legal basis to bring their claim based on the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs how federal agencies develop and issue regulations. But in an interim order before Thursday’s ruling, Talwani said the motions pertaining to this year’s election cycle were relevant: “In light of the EO’s specific deadlines over the next three months, and the reality that elections will be occurring throughout this period with the November 3, 2026 midterm occurring in just five months, postponing judicial review is impracticable and may inflict significant hardship on Plaintiffs,” she wrote. That order denied the Trump administration’s motion to dismiss the challenges.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan blocked the U.S. Postal Service’s proposed restrictions on mail-in voting, finding that they violated a settlement with a leading civil rights group that required expedited mail-in ballot handling. The Postal Service in May proposed a rule requiring ​states to provide lists of voters and adopt new balloting procedures before the mail agency would ​make deliveries. If states did not comply, the Postal Service would refuse to deliver the ballots. Sullivan sided with the NAACP rights group, which argued that the new rule would run afoul of a 2021 legal settlement that required USPS officials to take “extraordinary measures” to ensure timely delivery of ballot mail through 2028. Sullivan’s ruling ⁠prevented the Postal Service from implementing the proposed regulations, which stemmed from Trump’s March executive order directing the Department of Homeland Security to compile a list ​of confirmed U.S. citizens eligible to vote in each state and requiring ​the USPS to ⁠only deliver ballots to voters on each state’s approved mail-in ballot list. Sullivan’s ruling marked the second defeat in the courts in as many weeks ​for Trump’s push to severely restrict mail-in voting ahead of the ⁠November 3 midterm elections, with his Republican Party locked in a tight battle to maintain control of both houses of Congress.

A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week that Wyoming, Montana and Colorado voter-rights groups can wage a new civil trial against a group of private citizens who canvassed door-to-door to investigate whether the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent. The voter rights groups “were not fully heard at trial,” according to a panel comprised of judges Veronica Rossman, Michael Murphy and Richard Federico. Shortly after the 2020 election, three Colorado residents formed an unincorporated association, the United States Election Integrity Plan (USEIP). The volunteers asked voters if they’d engaged in voter fraud, whether they’d participated in the 2020 election, and whom they’d voted for, court documents say. Three voter-rights groups — the Colorado Montana Wyoming State Area Conference of the NAACP, League of Women Voters, and Mi Familia Vota — filed a lawsuit against the group and the three co-founders in March 2022 to stop those activities. The groups called those canvassing efforts voter intimidation, and invoked two federal laws against it: the Voting Rights Act and the Ku Klux Klan Act. Their civil complaint alleged the volunteers were sometimes armed and wore official-looking badges.

U.S. District Judge T. Kent Wetherell II has ordered the U.S. Department of Homeland Security ​to resume giving four Republican-led states access to an immigration database to check the citizenship status of people on their voter rolls, after ‌another judge blocked it from continuing to use the database nationwide. Wetherell, in a ruling on Tuesday said he was aware of Washington, D.C.-based U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan’s June 22 decision to halt use of the revamped database, which contains Social Security numbers, citizenship status, and other data on people nationwide. But Wetherell, who was appointed by Republican President Donald Trump, ​said that by disabling Florida, Ohio, Iowa and Indiana’s access to key features in the database in response to Sooknanan’s ruling, DHS had violated an earlier ​settlement the Trump administration entered into with the states to improve and modernize the system. “The fact that Defendants disabled those features ⁠to comply with Judge Sooknanan’s order does not change the fact that they violated the agreement,” he said.

Alabama: Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Brooke Reid is weighing whether to dismiss a legal challenge to Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s eligibility to run for Alabama governor, brought by two Alabama voters. Reid heard arguments June 29 but did not issue an immediate ruling, saying she would need additional time to decide whether the court has jurisdiction over the residency challenge. Tuberville’s legal team filed a motion to dismiss the case entirely, arguing the court lacks jurisdiction. Attorney Joe Espy argued on Tuberville’s behalf. The plaintiffs’ attorney, Barry Ragsdale, argued the case should not be dismissed and that the courts should rule on constitutional questions. “We believe the courts and the judiciary are who should pass on whether the constitution has been violated, and again, like I said to the judge, we don’t vote on whether people get constitutional rights,” Ragsdale said.

Alaska: Superior Court Thomas Matthews says the Alaska Division of Elections was wrong to disqualify Petersburg retiree Dan Sullivan as a challenger to U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan. Matthews said the decision to drop the candidate “was based upon a new, previously unstated, ‘good-faith’ criteria” that’s not in the Constitution or state law. “In addition, the (Division of Elections) Director’s assertion that Mr. Sullivan seeks to confuse or misguide voters is not supported by a preponderance of evidence,” the judge wrote in a 32-page decision issued Friday night. “Instead, the Division accepted at face-value the assertions of the complaint, and disregarded Mr. Sullivan’s assertions.” On June 29, with the deadline to print ballots less than 24-hours away, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld Matthews’ ruling. The Supreme Court’s ruling was issued three hours after the justices heard arguments in the appeal by the Alaska Division of Elections. But the ruling gives the Alaska Division of Elections leeway to determine how the candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, which could potentially raise further disputes.

Arizona: A challenge to election rules by the Pima County Republican Party could open the door to people standing 75 feet from polling places being able to shout at voters about how they should cast their ballots — and even use bullhorns and amplifiers. State Elections Director Lisa Marra testified in federal court Wednesday that statutes prohibit “electioneering” within 75 feet of polling places, and she acknowledged state law is silent about activity beyond that point. But the state Elections Procedures Manual says that electioneering is forbidden beyond that 75-foot limit “if it is audible from a location inside the door to the voting location.” Attorney Jeffrey Clark, who represents the county party that sued, says that makes illegal the decision of Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to include the ban on some activity outside that 75-foot perimeter. He said the secretary cannot enact restrictions more strict than what the Legislature has put into the law. Anyway, he said, any rule that restricts anything outside that line violates the First Amendment. It is now up to U.S. District Court Judge Michael Liburdi to decide whether the provision in the manual is legal and enforceable.

The U.S. Supreme Court says it will hear arguments over whether an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote is legal. The state requires Arizona voters to show they’re citizens when registering, but lower courts have ruled that violates federal law. That’s led to a kind of two systems: one for voters who register using the state form and show proof of citizenship, who are allowed to vote in all races and another for those who use the federal registration form, which requires voters to attest under penalty of perjury that they’re citizens, but does not require any further proof. Those voters are only allowed to vote in federal races, not state ones.

The Arizona Supreme Court sided with Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap in the ongoing fight between him and the county board of supervisors over election duties. In a unanimous order, the state’s highest court vacated a June ruling from the Arizona Court of Appeals, and reinstated injunctions put in place in April that required the board of supervisors to “fund all necessary expenses of the Recorder.” After Heap, who is allied with election deniers, won the 2024 Republican primary for Maricopa County Recorder, and before the general election, the board of supervisors signed an agreement with Heap’s predecessor to shift the recorder’s IT department to be under the board’s control. Heap terminated that agreement shortly after he took office, and has been feuding with the Board of Supervisors since then. In June 2025, he sued the board over their election duties dispute. Chief Justice Ann Timmer wrote that based on past case law, “the Board cannot use budgetary authority to usurp an independently elected officer’s statutory functions.” The high court opted to vacate the appeals court stay, and to reinstate the lower court’s order, with changes outlined in a 12-point interim operational protocol that Heap had earlier proposed to ensure that the primary election isn’t impacted. “To the extent issues can be resolved without disrupting procedures that are actually ongoing in the primary election process, the Court wishes to do so,” Timmer wrote.

Arkansas: U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks declared unconstitutional state laws restricting Arkansas’ initiative and referendum process that are being challenged in court by ballot measure sponsors. Brooks also allowed a handful of claims in the case to proceed to trial and left in place a preliminary injunction that temporarily blocked some of the challenged laws. The laws Brooks declared unconstitutional imposed requirements including that canvassers request photo ID from signers and that paid signature-gatherers’ home addresses be provided to the state. The 62-page order, which came just days before the July 3 deadline to submit petitions to qualify ballot measures for the November ballot, stems from a federal lawsuit filed against the secretary of state last April by the League of Women Voters who argued several new state laws violated the U.S. and Arkansas Constitutions. Two ballot question committees, Protect AR Rights and For AR Kids, were later allowed to intervene in the case. The groups challenged additional laws not included in the original suit, including a law that prohibits ballot titles from being written above an eighth-grade reading level, and another law that mandates a minimum number of petition signatures must be collected from at least 50 counties instead of 15 as directed in the Arkansas Constitution.

California: The Third District Court of Appeal denied an urgent request from the state’s attorney general to slap down a Shasta County elections law he has called illegal. The court opted against reviewing Attorney General Rob Bonta’s challenge to the county’s Measure B, which adds additional requirements like showing photo ID when voting. That measure, which received about 55% of the vote June 2 in the North State county, would require government-issued identification to register and vote, largely eliminate vote-by-mail and early voting, mandate hand-counted ballots and create a county voter registration system separate from California. The appeals court made no decision about the suit’s merits. “The denial is without prejudice to petitioners seeking expedited relief in the trial court in the first instance and to refiling in this court upon a showing that petitioners attempted to obtain expedited relief in the trial court, and the trial court failed to timely act,” the court wrote. “The attorney general and the secretary of state will quickly move to obtain relief in the appropriate court to protect voters’ rights and enforce state election laws,” Bonta’s office said in a statement. Bonta filed his complaint June 12, asking for a swift decision.

The California attorney general and secretary of state have refiled their joint lawsuit against Shasta County, challenging the legality of Measure B in the Shasta County Superior Court. “Measure B is an unlawful attempt to disenfranchise voters and create a rogue election system that serves only a select few,” said Secretary of State Shirley N. Weber in a press release yesterday evening. The voter-approved measure seeks to change Shasta’s election procedures in multiple ways that contradict state laws, including mandating voter ID, eliminating most mail-in voting, implementing a hand count of votes, and separating Shasta’s voter rolls from state oversight. The measure gained 56% approval in Shasta’s June primary. In the press release, the state said its initial decision to file in the appeals court last month was an attempt to speed the process of a court decision. The Third Appellate District court pushed back the case shortly thereafter, saying it was not the correct venue and redirecting the matter to a trial court. “Our position remains unchanged: Measure B is legally indefensible,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta in the state’s press release about the refiling.

Colorado: The Republican National Committee and two Colorado Republican elected officials are suing Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, alleging that a policy allowing some U.S. citizens overseas to register and vote in Colorado elections violates the state constitution. Douglas County Clerk and Recorder Sheri Davis and U.S. Rep. Jeff Crank of Colorado Springs joined the RNC as plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which was filed in Denver District Court. The suit targets guidance issued by Griswold affirming that U.S. citizens covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act may register to vote in Colorado even if they have “never lived in the United States,” provided that their “parent, legal guardian, spouse, or domestic partner was a resident of Colorado before leaving the United States.” The GOP lawsuit argues that Griswold’s guidance and a state statute applying the same criteria to eligible UOCAVA voters both violate the voter residency requirements in the Colorado constitution. It seeks a court order declaring the law unconstitutional and requiring Griswold to remove the allegedly ineligible voters from the rolls. “Residency is not inherited and cannot be established by proxy,” the lawsuit says. “An individual who has never personally made Colorado his or her home has not ‘resided in this state’ within the meaning of Article VII of the Colorado Constitution.”

The League of Women Voters of the Pikes Peak Region and other voting rights groups are suing Colorado Springs over when the city holds elections. Colorado Springs holds its municipal elections during the spring, and elects its mayor and councilors on different years than when state and federal offices are elected. By doing this, the voter rights groups say the city is breaking the state’s Voting Rights Act, which was enacted last year. The lawsuit alleges holding these elections at a different time than state and federal elections suppresses the votes of people of color. The suit presents voting data that revealed Black and Hispanic voters had roughly half the voter turnout of white registered voters in such municipal elections. The lawsuit says in the city’s six most recent local elections, 4 percent of non-white registered voters voted, compared with 5.8 percent in November state and federal elections. Kevin Bommer, head of the Colorado Municipal League, said the lawsuit could have a widespread impact on the state. A member of the league testified against the new law that the suit is based off of at the state house last year.

Georgia: Trump-appointed Judge William M. Ray has quashed a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice seeking personal information from the nearly 3,000 Georgians who served as Fulton County election workers and volunteers during the 2020 election, dealing a blow to the administration’s escalating effort to uncover alleged voter fraud in Georgia. The ruling ends a monthslong effort from the Department of Justice to obtain the names, positions, addresses, phone numbers and email addresses of election workers in Georgia’s most populous county. Lawyers for the Justice Department argued the records were needed to investigate possible election law violations. But in a 28-page opinion, the judge pointed out that the statute of limitations for any election-related crimes committed in 2020 has expired and cautioned against allowing sensitive information to be divulged without a “legitimate law enforcement purpose.” “Should a private company fail to protect such information from electronic thieves, such company would most likely be sued in a data breach class action lawsuit,” Ray wrote. “Thus, everyone, whether you support the President or you do not, or whether you believe the 2020 Election was fair or believe that it was not, should be concerned about the DOJ’s ability to utilize the power of the Grand Jury to appropriate your private information without a legitimate purpose.”

Maryland: Circuit Court Judge Robert J. Thompson denied a temporary restraining order to establish guidelines to canvass mail-in ballots. Thompson’s opinion released June 25 says that the complaint filed by several Republican candidates and a group called SecuretheVOTEMD would not “have a great likelihood of success on the merits in this matter.” The complaint was filed June 23, Election Day, and the plaintiffs included 10 Republicans who sought congressional, state and county offices. One of the plaintiffs, Del. Robin Grammer (R-Baltimore County), said Monday, ahead of the filing, that the complaint stemmed from what he called a mail-in ballot “fiasco” after the state Board of Elections had to replace more than 437,000 mail-in ballots. The complaint sought for canvassing to be shown via livestream video and to allow observers to watch ballots to be counted. With the specific exception of livestream, the judge wrote that the general public, candidates and their representatives can watch ballots being counted because they “are already enshrined into law.” “While most of the facts are not in dispute in this case, and, while conspiracy theories abound, the court finds that the printing and distribution of erroneous ballots was an honest mistake,” the judge wrote. “Those replacement ballots indicated that the previous ballots should not be used. In addition, SBE followed up with another mailing to those same voters notifying them of the mistake, and urging them to vote only the corrected ballots.”

Michigan: Hamtramck City Councilmember Mohammed Hassan has been acquitted of all felony charges in connection with the 2023 city council election. On July 1, a Wayne County jury acquitted Hassan of both felony counts of election law forgery and forging a signature on an absentee ballot application. However, the jury found Hassan, who also serves as the city’s mayor pro tem, guilty of providing a false statement in an application for an absentee ballot, a 90-day misdemeanor. The jury’s decision came three days after witness testimony and within two hours of the jury being handed the case on Wednesday morning. If convicted, Hassan faced the possibility of five years in prison and up to a $1,000 fine. Hassan was initially charged in August 2025 with election law forgery, two counts of unqualified elector attempting to vote, forging a signature on an absentee ballot application and providing a false statement in an application for an absentee ballot.

Nebraska: The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled June 26 that a lawsuit that sought to stop the state from handing over potentially sensitive voter data to the U.S. Department of Justice is moot and dismissed the appeal. The court in its ruling wrote, “because Nebraska’s voter registration list has already been released to the DOJ, this matter is moot, and we decline to apply the public interest exception to the mootness doctrine. As such, the appeal and cross-appeal are dismissed.” The lawsuit was brought by the voting advocacy group Common Cause and Omaha voter Dawn Essink against Secretary of State Bob Evnen last fall. In February, a Lancaster County District Court judge ruled that Common Cause lacked standing to sue because the alleged harm was speculative and not imminent. Shortly after that ruling, Evnen released the voter data to the federal government. The plaintiffs’ attorneys asked the high court to reverse the Lancaster County decision. Attorneys for the state argued the lower court’s decision should be affirmed, saying it was too late to stop the data from being shared.

Nevada: Republicans are challenging a Nevada law that allows U.S. citizens born abroad to vote in the state despite never living in the country. The Republican National Committee, the Nevada Republican Party and Jim Marchant, Republican nominee for Secretary of State, filed a lawsuit in the First Judicial District Court in Carson City late last month. Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, the Nevada State Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee were listed as defendants. Under current law, a U.S. citizen who has never resided in the United States is eligible to vote in Nevada as long as the state is their parents’ last legal address and the absentee voter has not registered to vote in another state. The Nevada law enacted the federal Uniformed Military and Overseas Absentee Voters Act through the Legislature. No lawmaker voted against it, and then-Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, signed 2011’s Assembly Bill 100 into law. Democrats counter that the legal challenge seeks to disenfranchise citizens who live abroad. “The lawsuit challenging Nevada’s protections for certain overseas voters is an attack on the voting rights of eligible U.S. citizens living abroad, and military families whose lives are shaped by service and sacrifice,” Aguilar said in a statement. “Children born overseas should not be punished because their parents served, worked or were stationed outside the United States,” he added. “Nevada will not turn its back on military families simply because their service took them away from home.” Absentee voters are required to reaffirm their eligibility every election cycle, according to the secretary of state’s office.

New Hampshire: The U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is appealing a decision by a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit it filed last year against New Hampshire and five other states for failure to produce statewide voter registration lists at the government’s request. An order issued June 29 by U.S. District Judge Joseph Laplante dismissed the federal government’s case against the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s Office seeking New Hampshire’s unredacted statewide voter registration list — including sensitive personal information considered confidential under state law. When the lawsuit was dismissed, New Hampshire Secretary of State David Scanlan said he is “committed to protecting the private information of New Hampshire voters to the fullest extent required by law.” At this time, attorneys with the Department of Justice have simply notified the court and parties involved they are appealing the decision. A motion detailing their case for appeal has yet to be filed.

Pennsylvania: U.S. District Judge Cathy Bissoon dismissed a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice seeking a copy of the state’s voter roll containing voters’ personal identifying information. “Public statements from government officials reveal its intentions: to create a nationwide voter-database, for potential weaponization in future elections; as a “fishing expedition,” hoped to advance unsubstantiated claims of non-citizen voting; and as a tool for immigration enforcement,” Cathy Bissoon, district judge for the Western District of Pennsylvania, wrote in a decision June 27. The department sued Pennsylvania in September. The Justice Department has said it is seeking the nonpublic information in order to ensure states are complying with federal voter registration laws. In December, the Pennsylvania Department of State urged the court to dismiss the case on the grounds that the laws the Justice Department was citing — the Help America Vote Act and National Voter Registration Act — don’t actually give them authority to demand the nonpublic versions of the voter rolls, and that the specific information the Justice Department sought was unnecessary to accomplish its objectives. The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for access to state voter rolls containing personal information such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. The Justice Department has filed an appeal.

South Carolina: The South Carolina Republican Party has officially filed a federal lawsuit in pursuit of party registration and closed primaries in South Carolina. In a lawsuit dated July 4, the party asked the court to recognize its constitutional right to limit participation in its nomination process to just Republican voters, citing the First Amendment. The official filing comes after the state party’s delegates voted to amend its rules at the state convention. 579 delegates approved the new rule, which stipulates that voters participating in Republican primary elections must register with the party. The legislature failed to advance a bill earlier this year that would require both party registration and closed primaries. Currently, any registered voter may participate in the primary election of their choosing. This has led to outside organizations encouraging participation in certain primaries to boost their own electoral interests.

Wisconsin: After losing in federal district court last month, the U.S. Department of Justice asked the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to expedite its lawsuit in order to audit Wisconsin’s voter registration list ahead of the August primary and November general election — demanding sensitive voter data like drivers license information and partial Social Security numbers. The DOJ’s emergency motion suggested “many” absentee ballots could be sent to “non-citizens” or otherwise “fraudulent” registrants without a federal audit. The appeals court denied the request on June 24. Court filings from the Wisconsin Elections Commission say it provided the DOJ with publicly accessible voter roll data. But the administration argues the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Help America Vote Act and the National Voter Registration Act require Wisconsin to give its voters’ driver license numbers and the last four digits of social security numbers too.

In a 5-2 decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that an activist group does not have the right to obtain the documents that notify election officials when someone is declared incompetent to vote by a circuit court judge. The Wisconsin Voter Alliance filed open records requests in a number of counties seeking the notice of voting eligibility forms that circuit courts send to local and state election officials when a judge declares a person incompetent and ineligible to vote. The group then sued to force the release of those documents. The statute guiding declarations of incompetency and the process through which a person declared incompetent can lose their voting rights includes a provision that states court records “pertinent to the finding of incompetency” are closed. In the majority opinion written by Justice Janet Protasiewicz and joined by the other three liberal justices plus conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, the Court ruled that the NVE form is created as part of a guardianship case, therefore it’s pertinent to the finding of incompetency and shielded from public disclosure.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker