Votebeat

Election officials played key role in Supreme Court mail ballot decision

2026-09-21T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

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Election officials exhaled when the Supreme Court on Monday night ended months of uncertainty by blocking the Trump administration from restricting mail ballots this November.

The Supreme Court decision clears the way for millions of Americans to vote by mail, just as they have in previous elections, though availability ranges widely from state to state.

“It’s a relief and it’s palpable,” said Marybeth Kuznik, the elections director for Pennsylvania’s Fayette County. “I honestly don’t know how we could have complied with (the Postal Service’s restrictions) at this point in the election cycle.”

But the administration’s efforts to tighten access and the chaotic legal battle that ensued left voters worrying that voting by mail could be disrupted or unreliable.

Now election officials are working to reassure them.

For months, people across the political spectrum voiced concerns about the new proposed U.S. Postal Service rules pushed by President Donald Trump. Election officials from both major political parties played a central role in the Supreme Court debate. More than 80 of them, including Kuznik, signed onto a brief warning that they wouldn’t have time to meet the new requirements before the November election. Several Republican secretaries of state, including officials from Kentucky, Georgia, and Kansas, urged the court to freeze the plans because of the chaos they would create for an election now less than 50 days away.

Those pleas appear to have been decisive for at least one justice, Brett Kavanaugh, who wrote a concurring opinion saying he thought there was a fair chance the rules would hold up to legal scrutiny, but applying them in the 2026 elections would be “arbitrary and capricious” because “state and local election officials do not have sufficient time to reasonably implement the rule.”

Now, election officials who have been for months raising concerns about an entirely new vote by mail system have to communicate to voters that the old one is safe to use, even as Trump continues to denounce it. Despite voting by mail himself last month in Florida, Trump attacked the process on social media as a “disaster” and “Nation Destroying SCAM” that made America the “laughing stock all over the World.”

Some election officials and experts said they are seeing fewer absentee ballot requests than expected.

“It has already caused all sorts of voter confusion, and even though the rule is not in place for this election, that’s not to say that there won’t be some voters that think that it is,” said Tammy Patrick, the chief program officer at the Election Center, a national nonprofit association for election administrators. “So it’s going to be incumbent on all of us to make sure that we just keep up the mantra that nothing has changed as a result of the rule.”

Patrick, who filed an expert declaration in the court cases challenging the Postal Service rules, said the best thing voters can do is get their ballots in as early as possible.

Dana Lewis, the recorder who oversees elections in Arizona’s Pinal County, joked that she wears six-inch heels so she can pivot on a dime, something that gave her the dexterity to keep up with this topsy-turvy election season.

Lewis, a Republican, has invested heavily in her county’s drop box system, which includes 24/7 video monitoring and GPS-locked ballot boxes for tighter security, something she believes should give voters confidence that their ballots will be kept safe. Roughly three-quarters of Arizona’s voters cast mail ballots in 2024, federal data show.

“Trust the system,” Lewis said.

But not everyone does. The court ruling came in parallel with a new poll showing a precipitous decline in public confidence in the nation’s electoral system. The University of California, San Diego survey found that just 55% of respondents trust that the vote would be counted fairly, compared to 71% in 2024.

The poll also found just 49% of Americans expect the upcoming election to be free and fair.

That’s in line with other polling, including a recent Pew Research Center survey in which 55% of respondents said they thought the upcoming election would be free and fair, an historic low for the question they have asked over the past six years.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Trump administration explains how it identified potential noncitizen voters, says it will provide list to Pennsylvania

2026-09-16T21:57:07+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

Update, Sept. 16, 7 p.m.: This story has been updated to include comments from the Pennsylvania Department of State.

Update, Sept. 16, 8 p.m.: This story has been updated to include comments from the Department of Homeland Security.

Update, Sept. 16, 9:50 p.m.: This story has been updated to reflect that as of Sept. 16, the Department of State has not yet received the list of potential noncitizen voters.

New records provide the most detail so far about the previously opaque process by which the federal government concluded that thousands of potential noncitizens are registered to vote in Pennsylvania.

On July 16, the day President Donald Trump delivered a high-profile speech on election security, the Department of Homeland Security said it had found more than 250,000 potential noncitizens registered to vote in California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. The states, though, called into question the accuracy of that number and asked for more information on how it was calculated.

DHS answered Pennsylvania’s query on Sept. 9, according to an email to Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt obtained by Votebeat and Spotlight PA. The department said the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate identified the potential noncitizens by comparing the state’s publicly available voter roll to internal DHS databases.

The email broke nearly two months of silence from the Trump administration over exactly how it arrived at the numbers Trump referenced in his July speech.

When DHS first informed Pennsylvania about the potential noncitizen registered voters in July, it told the Pennsylvania Department of State that Social Security numbers had been used in some of the matches. However, this led to confusion given that Pennsylvania has not provided the Trump administration with a list of registered voters that includes Social Security numbers.

But the Sept. 9 email, signed only by the DHS Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, said that DHS had not used “federal enumerators” like Social Security numbers to perform the matching. Instead, it said it used fields such as first name, last name, date of birth, phone number, and address.

A statement from DHS, which is attributed to an unnamed spokesperson, did not address the discrepancy.

“FDNS explained the methodology and has offered to continue to address questions and correct their misunderstanding of the information provided during the meeting,” the emailed statement said. “DHS and DOJ are laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens. We need state and local election officials to do their part.”

The Sept. 9 email also said that some of the 14,576 registered voters it flagged in Pennsylvania were firmer matches than others. “The more attributes from the individual registered voter that match an individual in DHS immigration records, the higher the confidence level of the match,” the email said.

“The highest confidence level of matching indicators, for example, first name, last name, middle name, date of birth, address, and phone number would be a 6-attribute match. If an individual did not have the same phone number or the same address, this would be a lower confidence match but likely still the same individual.”

The email went on to say that if matches were not made on all six main criteria, other indicators may have been used, such as previous addresses or spousal information.

In the email, DHS said it would send Pennsylvania officials a list of the potential noncitizens it identified. “Each one of the 14,576 individuals identified should be carefully reviewed by your state to determine eligibility for voting in a federal election,” it wrote.

The email offered Pennsylvania the choice of sending the registered voters’ federal enumerators to DHS to confirm or deny their citizenship, or conducting its own analysis.

It’s unclear whether the department has sent Pennsylvania the list of alleged noncitizens registered to vote since sending the email last week. As of Wednesday, the Department of State has not yet received the list.

Pennsylvania, as well as Nevada, recently called into question DHS’ confidence in its own numbers.

In Nevada, staff in the secretary of state’s office recorded an August call in which DHS officials said the original figure of potential noncitizens it had identified represented “the ceiling” of how many noncitizens were actually on the rolls.

In a letter recapping an August call with DHS representatives, Schmidt said that “DHS representatives explained that they did not have high confidence” in the figures they were presenting.

In its Sept. 9 email, the department disputed Schmidt’s framing, calling it a “blatant mischaracterization.”

A spokesperson for the Department of State said its characterization of the call was accurate, and that the state would only use “credible” information to maintain its voter rolls.

“Voters can be confident that eligible Pennsylvania citizens will not be disenfranchised by faulty methodology or unreliable data,” Matt Heckel, the Department of State spokesperson, said in an email.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Homeland Security secretary steps to forefront of Trump’s election battles

2026-09-14T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin isn’t one to shy away from a fight.

The former professional mixed martial arts fighter once challenged the Teamsters president to a brawl in the middle of a Senate hearing and clashed with U.S. officials while unsuccessfully trying to mount his own rescue mission to Afghanistan during the chaotic 2021 American withdrawal.

Now Mullin is stepping to the forefront of the Trump administration’s battle to exert more control over the fast-approaching November elections.

Mullin has threatened to lock up elections officials and withhold federal dollars from states that don’t adopt the election security measures dictated by his agency. He’s suggested that ICE officers might enter polling places on Election Day if they are trying to arrest a suspect. And he’s directed agents to step up voter fraud investigations in nine states.

The cascade of tough talk has propelled Mullin into the heart of the Trump administration’s expansive efforts to remake America’s electoral system in President Donald Trump’s vision.

Justin Levitt, an election law specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who worked in the White House under President Joe Biden on voting rights issues, said Mullin appeared to be driven by one overriding ambition: “Please the boss.”

“When the fourth grade soccer coach decides that everybody runs to the ball, everybody runs to the ball,” he said. “Regardless of what your actual job is.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Mullin took over as secretary in March after the tumultuous 14-month tenure of Kristi Noem, who was forced out by Trump after a series of controversies, notably on immigration enforcement.

“My goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day,” Mullin said during a confirmation hearing in March that barely touched on election issues.

Mullin emerged as a prominent public face of the Trump administration’s election overhaul in July when the president delivered a primetime address attacking the integrity of the nation’s voting system.

The next day, Mullin held a press conference at the White House complex, where he claimed his agency had found more than 250,000 noncitizen voters on the rolls in four states, challenged the integrity of voting machines, and threatened to jail election officials who didn’t do enough to prevent voter fraud. States have pushed back on those numbers.

Since then, Mullin has shifted more focus onto elections, declaring that “election security is national security.”

Last week, news broke that Mullin had directed hundreds of agents to focus their efforts on hunting down noncitizens on voting rolls across the country, even though there is no evidence of a widespread problem with noncitizens voting in U.S. elections.

Mullin also told reporters that he might send ICE agents into polling places on Election Day if they get reports of undocumented immigrants inside they are trying to arrest. That stirred up renewed concerns that the Trump administration would try to use federal forces to intimidate and deter voters from casting ballots — a federal crime, Levitt and others said.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson tried to calm fears by saying that “ICE is not planning operations targeting polling locations,” but that did little to assuage concerns.

“We have to respond in a very calm, collected way” to the Trump administration, said Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, who leads the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State. “We cannot respond in a chaotic manner that creates angst among the voters because we already know the administration is creating enough chaos.”

So far, Mullin’s efforts have had a limited impact. The Department of Homeland Security has quietly walked back its claims of 250,000 noncitizens on voter rolls. In Nevada, for instance, the agency scaled back its estimate from 16,000 to 185.

The federal campaign to root out alleged noncitizen voting over the past month has led to the arrest of at least six noncitizens accused of voting.

Mullin has also asked the Justice Department to pursue an investigation into some voting equipment.

Levitt said Trump’s biggest leverage is the perception that he might seize ballots or send troops to polling places on Election Day, not that he would actually do so.

“My real fear is that people change their own behavior in response to the noise, rather than taking a breath and looking around and recognizing that the world outside their door doesn’t actually look like the communications world he’s trying to construct,” he said.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Attorney faces possible discipline over conduct in 2020 Fulton County election lawsuit

2026-09-08T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

An attorney who represented a Pennsylvania county as it attempted to investigate the 2020 election is facing possible suspension or disbarment.

Thomas Carroll, an attorney from the Lehigh Valley, represented Fulton County in a long-running dispute the county had with the Pennsylvania Department of State and a voting equipment manufacturer.

Now, the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board, which regulates lawyers’ conduct, says Carroll should face consequences for the “bad faith” way in which he represented the county.

“[Carroll] used means that had no substantial purpose other than to delay and burden the parties, the Special Master, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, and the courts,” the March complaint from the Office of Disciplinary Council alleges.

Carroll told Votebeat he was confident he would prevail against the charges at trial.

“My clients were weaponized against for exposing national security evidence,” he wrote in an email. “The special master referred me in part to the bar for seeking a continuance due to breaking a rib and being on prescribed narcotics as a result. The truth will prevail.”

After the 2020 election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden, two Republican Fulton County commissioners began trying to investigate the results following a push from allies of President Donald Trump. As part of that investigation, they allowed an outside company to examine and download data from the county’s voting equipment.

The Pennsylvania Department of State, alarmed that a third party had accessed the county’s equipment, decertified it and sought an order from the state Supreme Court to prevent the county from allowing any other outside entities to examine the equipment. The court granted the order.

After that order was issued in early 2022, the county brought on Carroll as an attorney in the ongoing dispute. That summer, the county allowed another company to examine its equipment. As a result of that and the county’s overall conduct during the case, the state Supreme Court imposed substantial fines and issued a strong rebuke against both the county and Carroll.

“Despite being given every opportunity to participate in good faith in the proceeding, Attorney Carroll incessantly transgressed the bounds of zealous but ethical advocacy,” Justice David Wecht wrote for the court’s majority in 2023.

Justice Kevin Dougherty went a step further in his concurring opinion and specifically recommended the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board investigate Carroll’s conduct, which he called “especially concerning and problematic.”

In its complaint, the disciplinary board alleges several actions by Carroll that it says violate rules Pennsylvania attorneys are bound by.

For example, despite being hired by the county in April 2022, Carroll filed a motion in late July of that year after the county had missed the deadline to file a brief, saying he had “just appeared in this case.” He asked for an extension, which was granted, but he also missed that deadline.

That fall, when the Department of State was seeking to have the county held in contempt for allowing a second inspection of its equipment, the disciplinary board alleges Carroll repeatedly made “frivolous” filings and failed to inform the courts, or his clients, of relevant information.

The complaint also alleges that on Nov. 7, the day the county commissioners were scheduled to give depositions, Carroll filed a motion to delay those depositions. He argued that an outage in the state’s election management system would prevent the commissioners from testifying — even though the issue had occurred three days prior and had already been resolved.

When that request was rejected, Carroll told the Department of State the commissioners could not appear for the depositions or a hearing two days later. He explained in a subsequent filing that was in part because of their responsibilities running the 2022 election, even though they knew the election’s date when the depositions were agreed to.

The state Supreme Court also noted that Carroll did not notify the Democratic commissioner of her scheduled deposition, which “exposed her to sanctions and even arrest.”

The disciplinary board alleges that Carroll violated 11 different parts of the professional rules of conduct, including sections that involve making false statements and intentionally disrupting proceedings.

Carroll, in a response filed by his attorneys, denied the allegations and said he was not acting in “bad faith,” as the court alleged, but rather “zealously” representing his clients. He also noted the long period between when the Supreme Court recommended the disciplinary board seek sanctions against him and when they were actually filed.

“The unreasonable delay in prosecution of this matter has caused actual, concrete prejudice to Respondent’s ability to defend himself against the 241 factual averments in the Petition, which concern fast-paced events that occurred in 2022 and 2023,” Carroll’s attorneys wrote. “Respondent has been forced to practice law for nearly three years under the cloud of an unresolved disciplinary referral, which constitutes an unadjudicated sanction in itself and has caused significant personal, emotional, and professional harm.”

Bob Davis Jr., a Harrisburg-based ethics attorney who has practiced before the Pennsylvania Disciplinary Board, said the fact that the disciplinary proceeding was prompted by a rebuke directly from the state Supreme Court is significant.

“I think if the Supreme Court says that, I think you can very likely expect there is a case there,” he said.

Davis said a panel of three lawyers from Carroll’s part of the state will consider the case and present a finding to the disciplinary board, which will make recommendations on discipline to the Supreme Court. If Carroll is found to have violated any of the professional rules of conduct the disciplinary board is alleging he violated, Davis said he expects the recommended disciplinary action would range from suspension to possibly even disbarment.

A hearing on the allegations is scheduled for Feb. 25, 2027.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Watchdog releases review of Michigan registered voters

2026-09-02T10:00:01+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

With the high-stakes 2026 midterm election fast approaching, Michigan has conducted an independent review of its voter roll.

A report released Friday by the Office of the Auditor General found that the Michigan Department of State generally does a good job making sure only eligible people are registered to vote. But it also identified a small number of possible noncitizens, dead voters, and voters with inaccurate or ineligible birthdates.

The report could become a political football in the fall campaign. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is the Democratic nominee for governor, and Republicans have been banging the drum for years about alleged fraudulent voting under her watch.

The report helps put those claims in perspective. The auditor general — who is nonpartisan — found that 99.99% of the 8.3 million voters on the state’s Qualified Voter File, known as the QVF, had complete and valid personal data (such as address and birthdate) on file as required by state law.

The report confirmed that state and local election officials are conducting routine checks of the voter file to keep it up to date. It found that between Jan. 1, 2022, and March 30, 2026, nearly 1 million voter registrations were canceled for permissible reasons, including that the voter had died or moved away.

However, the audit also found that 403 registrations were canceled or rejected for reasons of citizenship during that period. This includes people who were registered despite checking the box on the registration form indicating they were noncitizens. It also includes people whose citizenship could not be confirmed — either because they did not check the citizen or noncitizen box on the form, or because they did not respond to election officials’ inquiries when their citizenship was challenged.

According to the report, 347 additional registrations from 2022 to 2026 were canceled because the voter “registered in error” for any reason, including being a noncitizen. It isn’t clear how many of those 347 registrations involved noncitizens.

A spokesperson for the Department of State defended the agency’s work, noting that these numbers represent a small fraction of Michigan voters. “This actually shows that election officials (state and local) are being proactive about maintaining the voter rolls – it is not evidence of a problem.”

The auditor general did not say whether any registrants flagged as potential noncitizens had voted in any elections. Last month, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, charged five noncitizens for allegedly voting illegally in the 2024 election.

The report also compared voting records to death records from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to ascertain whether dead people were casting ballots.

It found that voters who, according to state health records, had died before Election Day cast 2,582 ballots in elections since 2022. But 2,561 of those were early or absentee ballots cast by people who had died within 40 days of the election — the period during which people are allowed to vote absentee.

That suggests most of these votes were legitimately cast by living people who later died before Election Day. In 2024, an average of 281 people died in Michigan per day.

Michigan law states that election officials “shall make [their] best effort” to void absentee ballots cast by people who they learn have died before Election Day. However, the auditor’s report notes, “Because of delays between the dates of a person’s death, death certification, and formal removal from QVF, election workers may not identify and reject the absentee ballot of an elector with a date of death close to an election date.”

Other sections of the report found that 653 registered voters in Michigan have birthdates indicating they are older than 122 years old, and 73 are younger than 17 and a half. The Department of State told Votebeat there could be several reasons for that, including that birth years can sometimes be misentered in the system.

Some voters who registered before the system went digital may not have provided birthdates at all, the department said. When transferring these voters into the electronic system, where birthdate is a required field, election officials may have input their birth year as 1900 as a placeholder — a common practice in large datasets because it makes those entries easy to separate.

In one last notable finding, the auditor general discovered an error in monthly reports posted to the Department of State’s website: They significantly overreported the number of people automatically registered to vote when obtaining or updating their driver’s license or state ID card.

The Department of State acknowledged the error and corrected it. A spokesperson told Votebeat that the problem was with the script the department used to generate the reports, not with the underlying data.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Election officials wrestle with uncertainty amid legal battles over Trump mail ballot restrictions

2026-08-26T16:00:19+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Update, August 26, 1:27 p.m.: This story has been updated with the fact that, shortly after publication, a federal judge lifted an order that was blocking the U.S. Postal Service from putting new rules on mail ballots in place for the November election.

Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in favor of President Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict mail ballots via executive order is procedural and narrow, but it’s fueling broad confusion and uncertainty as the November election grows inexorably closer.

On Wednesday, in response to the high court decision, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani removed the last legal block preventing the U.S. Postal Service from finalizing its proposed changes for the 2026 elections, even though she warned that the move could create “chaos” as the election closes in.

On Wednesday, a coalition of Democratic states at the forefront of the fight filed a new federal lawsuit against the Postal Service asking the court to block the changes, a move that will likely put them on a fast track back to the Supreme Court and leave election officials contending with messy legal rulings for some time to come.

“Across the country, states are already deep into preparations for the 2026 elections,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in announcing the lawsuit. “Now, at the last moment, the federal government is attempting to meddle in those preparations and potentially threaten countless Americans’ right to vote.”

In a separate case, voting rights groups and Democratic leaders on Tuesday also asked federal courts to block the changes from going into effect for this November’s election.

“The 2026 election has already begun, and this is sowing chaos,” said Paul Gronke, a political science professor at Reed College in Oregon and a founder of the Elections & Voting Information Center.

Meanwhile, as the fight rages over how the U.S. Postal Service will handle mail ballots, North Carolina is preparing to send the first ones out next week.

Jason Tyson, director of external affairs for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said the state is still planning to send out its ballots as expected.

“At this time, with so much left unresolved, we cannot comment on hypotheticals about what may or may not happen with the USPS and the executive order in the courts, as the situation is uncertain,” he said. “If it becomes necessary, we will do our best to comply with any court decisions.”

Monday’s high court ruling added to a messy snarl of court cases over Trump’s March executive order that sought to allow the U.S. Postal Service to reject delivery of mail ballots to voters in states that don’t meet new federal requirements.

The justices, who split along ideological lines, ruled only on a narrow legal argument and stressed their decision didn’t speak to the merits of Trump’s plan. While the case was pending, the Postal Service last week moved to finalize the new rules, action that a federal judge ruled Tuesday had violated a court order.

The Postal Service rules require states to use a new online federal government system to send it a list of all voters that should receive mail ballots. The Postal Service would refuse to send ballots to anyone not on the list. The envelopes would have to meet new design standards, including unique barcodes that have to be checked by the Postal Service.

Is it too late for changes?

While the matter works its way through the courts, states across the nation have already designed, ordered, and paid for ballots that don’t necessarily comply with the new design guidelines (though North Carolina’s Tyson says theirs do).

North Carolina’s ballots start going out Sept. 4. Seven other states, including New York, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, can start sending out their ballots the following week.

Tammy Patrick, the chief program officer at the Election Center, a national nonprofit association for election administrators, said there was no way that states would be able to successfully shift to the new system if it were to be approved by the courts.

“I don’t know of a single state where this could be adopted and rolled out quickly, and that I think is a real problem,” she said.

Trump supporters who have been cheering his push to assert more control over elections hailed the court ruling but expressed concern that time was running out to set up the system for the November election.

Catherine Engelbrecht, founder of the conservative, Texas-based anti-voter-fraud group True the Vote, said she supports the effort but acknowledged the Trump administration faces a daunting challenge in trying to set up the new system with fewer than 70 days to go before Election Day.

“It’s a tall hill to climb, but somebody’s got to do it,” she said.

Even if the courts block the Trump administration from moving ahead with the new plan for November, some voting rights advocates predicted that the president would still look for other ways to impose his policies.

Jared Davidson, an election law attorney at Protect Democracy, said that the Trump administration continues to face legal setbacks in its efforts to impose federal regulations on elections because the Constitution gives states primary responsibility for running elections.

“In the days and weeks ahead I think we can all expect that this administration will throw all kinds of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks,” said Davidson. “But the law could not be clearer that this is an effort to take control over elections by an executive where there is no authority to do that whatsoever.”

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

A state election law in Minnesota faces a surreal test

2026-08-24T11:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Can Hamas members from the Gaza Strip walk in and vote in Minnesota elections?

A group of disguised conservative activists armed with hidden cameras set out to test that claim during the state’s recent primary election. The Election Day exploit put a spotlight on Minnesota’s election laws, and has now triggered investigations.

The furor centers on a Minnesota law allowing what is often referred to as “vouching.” It permits a registered voter to clear the way for up to eight other eligible voters to register and cast ballots on Election Day by signing a sworn statement affirming that those people live in their precinct.

The rarely used law has been on the books in Minnesota since 1973. It’s most typically used for residents of nursing homes who have moved out of their longtime houses but haven’t yet changed their addresses.

The activists decided to test the law at Minneapolis polling places during the August 11 primary.

One of the men, Cam Higby, dressed as a conservative Muslim woman with his face hidden by a black veil and said he misrepresented himself as a registered voter to see if he could game the vouching system. Another, James O’Keefe, dressed in traditional Muslim clothing, appeared to impersonate at least two registered voters at different polling places, and said he wanted to vouch for prospective voters. Another activist, Anthony Rubin, walked into a polling place saying he wanted to vouch for several people he claimed were newly arrived Hamas members from the Gaza Strip.

None of the activists said they went so far as to try to cast a ballot in the election. But they did release a series of carefully edited videos suggesting that the Minnesota vouching system is so lax that it makes it possible for virtually anyone to vote in an American election, creating a furor on social media.

What is vouching and how does it work?

So, how does the Minnesota law work, and is it unusual? To use the system, the person doing the vouching has to be either a registered voter in the precinct or an employee of a residential facility — such as a nursing home — vouching for a resident of that facility. That person must sign a sworn statement saying that they know that the people they are vouching for live in the precinct. This can serve as proof of residency for eligible voters looking to register to vote on Election Day, in lieu of documentation such as a state ID or utility bill.

The person being vouched for doesn’t have to show a physical ID to verify their identity, but must still fill out the standard voter registration application, which requires them to affirm that they are a U.S. citizen and eligible to vote in Minnesota. It also asks them to provide a Minnesota driver’s license number, a state ID number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number. That information is checked later by elections officials to make sure it’s legit. Lying on a voter registration form is a felony carrying a penalty of up to five years in prison and $10,000 in fines.

In Minnesota’s 2024 general election, about 19,000 voters used the vouching system, about 0.6% of the 3.2 million people who cast ballots that year. Of that 19,000, the vast majority were already registered voters updating existing registrations on Election Day with information such as a new address. Around 5,500 people were voting for the first time.

Minnesota’s vouching law has become a prime target for conservative activists who say the process exposes the vulnerabilities of a system that doesn’t require voters to show an ID. A registered voter can vouch for up to eight people. Someone working in a nursing home can vouch for an unlimited number of residents.

“With tens of thousands of voters registering through vouching across recent cycles, without basic verification safeguards, the vouching policies and practices leave Minnesota’s elections vulnerable and risk Americans’ votes being canceled by fraudulently registered voters,” Will Scolinos, an attorney at conservative nonprofit America First Legal, said in May.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon has publicly defended the law. In a letter earlier this year to the U.S. Department of Justice, he pointed out that other states also allow some forms of vouching. For example, Alaska allows state voter identification requirements to be waived if the election official knows the identity of the voter, Iowa allows registered voters to vouch for someone from the same precinct without documentation on Election Day, and Arkansas permits staff members to vouch for residents of long-term or residential care facilities.

Simon denounced the activists’ Election Day operation as “outrageous and totally unacceptable.”

The videotaped incidents were reported by poll workers on Election Day and are under investigation by elections officials and local law enforcement, Simon said.

“The conduct was disturbing,” Simon told Votebeat. Simon said the law has long had bipartisan support in the state as a way to expand voter access, especially for elderly residents.

“This is America,” he added. “Do what you want. If you want to dress up as someone, look no further than Borat and Sacha Baron Cohen. But we have to draw the line.”

Could those people claiming to be newly arrived Hamas members from the Gaza Strip have voted?

To do so, the prospective voucher would have had to break several laws by impersonating a registered voter and signing an affidavit falsely claiming that the other people lived in the precinct. Then the fake Hamas members would have had to break the law by providing false information about their identity and their eligibility to vote in Minnesota.

It is unclear from the videos released by the activists if the poll workers detailed the other steps they would have to go through before they could vote. Anthony Rubin declined to comment or release the raw footage from the incidents. O’Keefe did not respond to a request for comment.

Higby said the group was trying to expose shortfalls in the state election system.

“The goal was never to vote, it was never to touch a ballot, it was never to obtain a ballot,” Higby told Votebeat. “It was simply to test the system and see if poll workers would be prepared to allow me to vote.”

But Simon said in his 11 years as Minnesota’s top elections official, he’d never seen a single case of someone trying to game the vouching system to illegally vote.

“Could someone scam the system?” he asked. “Anything is possible. But you have to look at what is probable.”

Simon said he’d also never before seen a case of someone impersonating a voter.

“There is no end to the creativity of people who are looking to do wrong,” he said. “You have to look at the track record and the incentive structure. There’s a high likelihood that someone is going to get caught.”

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

The SAVE system isn’t reliable, but it still might be useful. One Arizona county’s experience shows how.

2026-08-22T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

Recorder Michelle Burchill was intrigued when she first learned about a newly expanded federal tool for checking voters’ citizenship.

She had helped run elections in bright-red Yavapai County, Arizona, for about six years — and while she entered the field as an elections skeptic, she had gained trust in election systems during her time with the county. Still, Burchill, a Republican, wanted to confidently tell her voters, neighbors, and friends that her county’s voter roll was free of any noncitizen voters.

So, earlier this year, she began running her county’s voter list through the expanded tool, called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE.

That system, maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was originally built to check immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits. Under President Donald Trump’s administration, it has been transformed into a mass voter verification tool — and a political lightning rod. Trump and his allies have used its findings to claim that there are thousands of noncitizens registered to vote across the country; Democrats have decried it as a voter suppression tool after it was found to have falsely flagged eligible voters as noncitizens.

Burchill, who spent months running her county’s voter rolls through the system, also saw false positives. But she said the system helped her confirm the citizenship status of hundreds of voters who hadn’t submitted a birth certificate, passport, or other documents required by Arizona law to vote a full ballot.

She also found the tool useful for identifying voters who had died and needed to be removed from the rolls, as well as vulnerabilities in the state’s aging voter registration system. And in the process, she found 30 noncitizens on her voter list, representing about 0.01% of her county’s total voters. She reached that number only after using other methods and databases to double-check the citizenship status of voters that the SAVE system initially flagged as ineligible.

Nationwide, virtually every election official aims to maintain a clean voter roll. The politicization of SAVE — which, after a series of court decisions, is now in legal limbo — has problematized its use for routine, nonpartisan maintenance. But Burchill’s experience shows that the system could be helpful — when used responsibly. Her county is now among the first jurisdictions in the country to demonstrate the system’s broader potential as a voter roll maintenance tool.

“The SAVE database is not the only useful tool on which we should rely for voter registration purposes,” Burchill wrote in an Aug. 7 report summarizing her findings, “but in my view, it has been by far the most valuable.”

Nationally, SAVE has made headlines for false positives

Burchill’s experiment stands in stark contrast to the vast majority of jurisdictions nationwide. States and counties that have run their data through SAVE — which tend to be run by Republicans — have largely used it to confirm their suspicions that the rolls are laden with noncitizens. Most Democratic-run jurisdictions, by contrast, have not even used it at all.

Until last year, the tool had a fairly limited use. It could confirm citizenship for certain voters, but only if election officials had specific immigration and naturalization identification numbers issued by the Department of Homeland Security.

But then, in March 2025, Trump issued a sweeping executive order that required the agency to make federal citizenship data available to state and local election officials and provide them with free access to federal systems for verifying voters’ eligibility.

So, late last year, the Trump administration upgraded the system to allow election officials to upload their voter lists to it to scan for noncitizens. And initially, the system indicated thousands of noncitizens were present on their voter rolls. As of June, the Department of Homeland Security said that states had run 60 million voter records through the system — about a third of all registered voters in the U.S. — and 24,000 were flagged as potential noncitizens.

But as election officials began investigating individual cases, they quickly realized that the tool was returning false positives.

In Missouri, the program wrongly flagged hundreds of voters as noncitizens. Officials didn’t attempt to confirm that information before limiting voters’ ability to cast ballots.

In Texas, the system said more than 2,000 of the state’s roughly 18 million voters were noncitizens. County election officials have since determined some of the flagged voters were citizens, though it isn’t clear exactly how many.

In Arizona, just one other county — Maricopa, the state’s most populous — has said it’s used the tool. There, Recorder Justin Heap, a Republican, announced in February that his office had identified 137 potential noncitizens registered to vote. But Heap didn’t answer questions about whether he vetted the SAVE system’s results. Later, he said that he intended to change the registration status of the flagged voters, though experts questioned whether he’d followed the appropriate steps to notify them before doing so.

Prosecutors continue to investigate the voters referred by Heap. They have yet to issue information about whether the voters are noncitizens and whether they could be charged with illegally voting.

Meanwhile, several other jurisdictions, including counties in Texas, have ended up reinstating some voters who were incorrectly flagged as potential noncitizens by the SAVE system.

How Yavapai County ran its voter rolls through SAVE

Burchill began her experiment with the SAVE tool on a small scale — by examining her county’s roughly 300 federal-only voters.

Arizona requires people to submit documents proving their citizenship when registering to vote — a step beyond most states and the federal government, which only require voters to attest to their citizenship under the penalty of perjury. Arizonans who register with a federal form but don’t submit such documents are allowed to vote in federal contests, but not state ones. As such, the state has thousands of federal-only voters — people who haven’t proven citizenship, but are still allowed to vote in presidential and congressional races.

Burchill wondered whether the SAVE system could confirm citizenship for any of them. If so, they could be registered as full-ballot voters, expanding voting access.

Her idea worked. The tool confirmed the citizenship of 255 federal-only voters — all of whom can now vote full ballots. A handful came back as deceased, and several dozen came back with no determination. No noncitizens were found, backing analyses that have suggested most federal-only voters are students, homeless, or born on tribal lands, where birth certificates were not commonly issued for decades.

Burchill then used SAVE to check a list of 6,781 voters impacted by a longstanding state coding error. The coding issue made it difficult to determine whether those individuals had provided proof of citizenship when they registered.

The results surprised her. Several active voters were flagged as deceased, suggesting that there could be significantly more dead voters on the county’s rolls than previously known. Nationally, many states share death information with one another — but not all of them. That means local election officials aren’t necessarily automatically notified when a voter dies.

Another 10 voters — one of whom had previously cast a ballot — were flagged as noncitizens and ultimately had their registrations cancelled.

Before doing so, though, Burchill took additional steps to try to confirm whether these voters actually were deceased or noncitizens. The group of suspected noncitizens were sent formal notices requesting they submit documents proving their status, as prescribed by state law, and given 35 days to respond. Burchill, keeping in mind SAVE’s spotty track record, also personally called, emailed, and mailed letters to those flagged by the tool.

Finally, Burchill decided to run her county’s full voter roll through SAVE. The system confirmed citizenship for the vast majority of voters. It identified 39 as noncitizens, but through further vetting, Burchill said she was able to track down citizenship documents for 28 of them. The other 11 were removed from the voter rolls after the requisite notification and waiting period.

In the process of running the checks, Burchill also discovered nine other noncitizen voters — and a potential glitch in the state’s systems.

In total, she used SAVE to confirm the citizenship of 193,114 voters — 99.8% of those on her county’s roll. Burchill ultimately identified and cancelled the registrations of 30 individuals flagged as noncitizens, four of whom had previously voted.

The takeaways

Burchill’s report concluded the SAVE system, while flawed, can be used to constructively clean voter rolls and build confidence in elections, provided that its data is vetted carefully.

Hers is the most detailed, but not only, example.

Officials in Florida used the tool to help investigate specific voters after receiving information that they might be noncitizens. In a Jan. 15 report, they said they had looked into more than 835 voters and, after vetting them with the SAVE system and other tools, found that about 200 were ineligible to vote.

In Utah, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, wrote in a May 27 report that while SAVE could not reliably determine whether a voter was not a citizen without crosschecks, it reliably identified people who were citizens. She said the tool helped “identify and fix potential vulnerabilities in our voter registration processes while also protecting the rights of eligible voters.”

Burchill said her experiment also raised new questions about Arizona’s election laws and systems. For instance, some voters were flagged by the SAVE system as having no record or determination of citizenship. She was able to confirm most of those voters’ citizenship statuses in the Arizona Voter Information Database, the state’s voter registration system — but not all. That means some remain in limbo.

“These voters may very well be citizens, but we don’t have proof of either status,” Burchill wrote, adding that the voters would remain on the rolls under existing Arizona laws.

Burchill said the experiment also raised potential concerns with AVID that state and local officials are still working to fully understand. While attempting to confirm noncitizens flagged by the SAVE system, she discovered that several had seen their citizenship status change in motor vehicle records — without any notification to election officials.

Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, which administers AVID, said officials were looking into the changes described by Burchill. Jones added that her office “does not register voters, nor do we change voter information,” calling the issue “an outstanding question for our office as well.”

And Burchill questioned what election officials should do if they become aware of a potential noncitizen on the rolls within 90 days of an election. Under federal law, officials are barred from conducting systematic removals of ineligible voters during that period.

“This topic has not been addressed in the past but is now something that needs to be addressed in law,” Burchill wrote, adding that the SAVE system created an “uncomfortable” tension with the mandated pause.

SAVE is currently mired in lawsuits. In June, a federal judge blocked the use of the expanded tool, ruling that it violated citizens’ privacy and voting rights. That ruling prompted the Department of Homeland Security to pause certain features in the SAVE system to comply. Last month, a different federal judge ordered the agency to restore access to the revamped system for four states — Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Indiana — due to an earlier settlement agreement.

Burchill said her use of the SAVE system didn’t infringe on any voters’ privacy. The only information she ran through SAVE was voters’ names, dates of birth, and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. That information, she said, is already on record in the system.

“I’ve never understood why people keep saying there’s privacy concerns when we are just matching our info to what the database has,” she told Votebeat in a text message. “The whole point is for them to respond and say, ‘Yes, the information is correct and matches.’”

She said she thought it was unfortunate that the courts had limited SAVE’s use and believes the tool can still be valuable.

“I am more confident in our voter roll today than ever before, and that has always been my goal,” she wrote in her report.

Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org.

‘I don’t trust you’: Tensions reach boiling point on election security call for state leaders hosted by Trump administration

2026-08-17T11:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Tensions between state election officials and the Trump administration are rising as we head into the heart of the midterm election season. Frustrations boiled over on Monday during a rare election security call hosted by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency for state officials. During the call, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes unloaded on the agency.

CISA used to be a go-to shop for many states looking for help ensuring that their elections weren’t hacked, targeted, or undermined by cyberattacks or foreign interference. CISA provided states with classified security briefings on threats, helped ensure that state voting equipment wasn’t vulnerable to cyberattacks, and worked with election leaders to game out potential risks.

All that changed when Donald Trump returned to the White House last year. The second Trump administration scaled back its support for states, cut back CISA staff, and launched an investigation of its former leader, whom Trump accused of disloyalty because he pushed back on the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged. CISA has not had a permanent director since the start of Trump’s second term.

Changes at CISA have paired with the president’s broad focus on controlling how elections are run. The federal government is threatening to arrest election officials if they allow noncitizens to vote. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has vowed to withhold federal funds from states that don’t implement Trump administration election overhaul proposals. A coalition of Democratic states and officials has sued the Department of Homeland Security in a suit that accuses the Trump administration of withholding Federal Emergency Management Agency funding in an attempt to coerce states into enacting disputed election changes.

With all that as backdrop, CISA organized this week’s call – and things didn’t go too well.

After more than a year of near silence, elections officials wondered if CISA would step up to offer classified intelligence briefings on emerging cyber threats from hostile countries, specialized testing of election equipment, or training on how to prepare for potential problems on Election Day.

Instead, CISA leaders provided what one participant characterized as a generic “CYA” (cover your a**) briefing that offered state officials few assurances that the federal government would help thwart threats this November.

Participants said acting CISA Director Nick Andersen and Jim Harrell, the assistant director for integrated operations, offered no concrete support for the 2026 election, which is less than 90 days away. Instead, the participants said, CISA leadership seemed more focused on the 2028 presidential election.

When they were done, according to participants, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, lashed out at the CISA officials. Fontes blasted the Trump administration for threatening state election officials and made it clear he had no confidence in their leadership, they said.

“Fontes got testy with them,” said one participant on the call who asked not to be identified. “‘I don’t trust you,’ [Fontes told the CISA officials.] ‘Your boss came out there and said: We are going to criminalize the work you do. Why should we trust you?’”

When asked about the call, Fontes confirmed that he’d made those comments and expanded on his frustrations

“They don’t work with us, they work against us,” Fontes told Votebeat. “Why should I trust them?”

Fontes said it was difficult for state and local elections officials to have confidence they would get support from the federal government when the administration treats them like an adversary rather than a partner. He and others on the call said CISA leaders offered few assurances they would provide much support in the coming weeks.

“They just wholly and completely abandoned their duties and threatened prosecution,” Fontes said. “If they want to apologize for threatening us and ruining perfectly good systems, that’s a good start.”

CISA did not respond to requests for comment on the call.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, also a Democrat, echoed Fontes’s frustrations.

“It’s unhelpful to have political leaders, including the secretary of Homeland Security, hinting at imprisoning election administrators who don’t do what they want,” Simon told Votebeat. “That’s just not helpful.”

Simon said Minnesota and other states have spent months working to fill the gaps left by the drop-off in CISA support.

“It’s pretty clear states are almost entirely on their own this election cycle and cannot rely on the federal government for election assistance,” said Simon.

Not everyone on the call came away with a sour taste in their mouth, though. Some participants described it as a tentative move that could help repair the strained relationship between state and federal leaders working on elections.

Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, also a Democrat, described the call as a “positive step” in rebuilding relations between CISA and state election officials.

“While this engagement is encouraging, CISA and our other federal partners must focus on continuing to rebuild trust with election officials,” Hobbs said. “Over the last two years, we have watched this administration systematically dismantle many of the election security resources in place at the federal level.”

With the November election fast approaching, he said, “election officials need sustained commitment to supporting local elections, not renewed attention only as major elections approach. Meaningful support will do more to rebuild relationships than words alone.”

Texas’ mail ballot ID requirements restored by federal appeals court

2026-08-13T21:30:32+00:00

This story was first published by The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday restored several pieces of a 2021 Texas election law that overhauled mail-in and assisted voting, overturning a lower court’s block on those provisions.

Five years ago, Texas passed Senate Bill 1, a wide-reaching election law that changed the way local officials administer elections and how some Texans vote, particularly aimed at initiatives Harris County implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. The law was denounced by voter advocacy groups, civil rights organizations, and Democratic lawmakers, who broke quorum in an attempt to stifle the bill.

After several lawsuits over accessibility concerns created by the new law were consolidated into a single suit, a district judge in March 2025 struck down nine of its provisions. Those blocked provisions included requiring Texans to provide an identification number or Social Security number on mail-in ballot applications and have them match the state’s records. The judge also blocked provisions that create processes for curing defective ballots and require voters and those who assist them in filling out their ballot to sign an oath swearing they did not coerce the voter and disclose how they’re related.

The plaintiffs who sued argued the provisions were overly cumbersome and restrictive for voters with disabilities, and the district judge agreed, ruling they violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. Texas allows voters who are over the age of 65 and those with certain disabilities, among others, to vote by mail.

Wednesday’s 11-page ruling from the 5th Circuit reverses the district judge’s ruling in its entirety, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing on most of their complaints. The written opinion strongly rebuked the lower courts’ decisions in the suit, noting that appellate judges have “reversed the district court on everything” through the suit’s five years of litigation.

“The bulk of the plaintiffs’ claims fail for lack of standing. One fails on the merits. But none justifies interference with the State Legislature’s efforts to prevent voter fraud and to protect election integrity,” Judge Andrew Oldham wrote in the opinion.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is a defendant in the suit, described the ruling as a “major victory” in a social media post.

The ruling also asserts that mail-in ballots have “long been established” as prone to fraud, and notes that the number of mail-in application or mail-in ballot rejections caused by identification numbers errors dropped from 11% to 2.7% after the law’s implementation. A 2022 study found that 1 in 7 voters who requested a mail ballot in the 2022 primary had their applications or ballots rejected in the wake of SB 1.

Antrim County clerk and her husband cleared of ‘criminal wrongdoing’ in computer case

2026-08-06T22:52:46+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Embattled Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop and her husband, a conservative talk radio host best known as Trucker Randy, won’t face charges after she left him alone with her government computer.

In February, a county maintenance worker reported that Randy Bishop was sitting in the clerk’s office unsupervised watching a public video stream of a county commission meeting on the office computer. This led to concerns that he could have used the computer to access sensitive information, including the Qualified Voter File, the central database that contains Michigan’s voter roll and can only be accessed by election officials.

Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a news release Thursday that her office found “no evidence of criminal wrongdoing” or that anyone had tried to access the QVF from that computer at that time.

The investigation found that the clerk likely did allow her husband to use her computer — which matches what they later told the Michigan State Police — but that no sensitive county files were touched, either.

Regardless, Nessel said the case “surely represents a clear misstep from adequate practices and prudent policy.”

The Bishops could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday, but their attorney, Kevin Kijewski, said via text message that “the allegations against Clerk Bishop collapsed under scrutiny.”

“Clerk Bishop remains focused on serving the people of Antrim County,” he added.

Nessel’s finding puts to bed one piece of a series of controversies that has followed Victoria Bishop for several months. Some local activists are looking to recall Bishop from office after she allegedly changed a number of voters’ statuses in the QVF earlier this year, despite that being outside of what a county clerk is permitted to do. She then lost access to the QVF entirely in June after failing to adequately respond to questions from the Michigan Bureau of Elections about her actions.

The recall effort was initially denied in its first attempt to win approval for signature gathering last month. Organizers have resubmitted their effort, though, and it is next scheduled to go before the Board of State Canvassers on Aug. 17, according to filings organizers shared with Votebeat.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Trump is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow new mail ballot restrictions in the 2026 midterms

2026-08-03T11:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Elections are back before the U.S. Supreme Court: The Trump administration is asking the justices to quickly lift an order blocking its efforts to put new restrictions on mail-in voting for the fast-approaching midterm elections.

It’s unclear how the justices will rule, but the case focuses on a narrow question of whether or not the lower courts issued premature rulings rather than the broader questions about the legality of the executive order.

But no matter what the court decides this time, a series of practical and legal challenges make it increasingly unlikely that the federal government can impose new rules giving the U.S. Postal Service the power to block Americans from voting by mail in November’s elections.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the justice designated to handle emergency appeals from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, ordered the plaintiff states to respond by Monday to the Trump administration’s filing, and a decision could come any time after that. But there are already fewer than 100 days left until the election, and the U.S. Postal Service itself said in July court filings that it is running out of time to carry out the changes the president is demanding in time for this election.

The heart of the matter is President Donald Trump’s March 2026 executive order, which attempts to restrict mail-in voting by requiring creation of a series of lists of people eligible to vote, including one it requires the U.S. Postal Service to secure from states listing all voters eligible to use mail ballots. The order attempts to give the postal service unprecedented new power to prevent delivery of mail ballots to anyone who is not on these lists.

States, nonprofit groups, and Democratic party committees quickly sued over the order, which they argued was unconstitutional because the president has no authority over elections. Federal courts have since issued conflicting orders on the question of whether blocking major provisions would be premature because government agencies hadn’t yet taken final action to carry out Trump’s orders.

A judge in federal court in Washington, D.C. declined to block the challenged provisions, but last month, in a case brought by states, a federal judge in Massachusetts prevented the Trump administration from moving ahead with the plans, putting the whole issue on hold. Separate appeals courts have now upheld both rulings, leaving the Massachusetts injunction in place for now, which is what prompted the Trump administration to file its emergency appeal last week with the Supreme Court.

Still, “I think everyone agrees that it’s not going to be implemented for 2026,” said Derek Muller, an elections specialist at the University of Notre Dame Law School. “The logistics are so horrific.”

To be clear, the issue the court is now being asked to decide isn’t about the legal merits of the executive order itself, or whether Trump has the authority to issue it. The Trump administration is arguing that the federal courts blocked the executive order prematurely because the government is still drafting the rules, which haven’t been finalized. Until the rules are final, the Trump administration argues, the states can’t prove that there is any harm that should be blocked by the courts, or that agencies won’t carry out the order in a way that complies with the law.

The Massachusetts court’s injunction “is especially indefensible because the agencies are still deliberating over how (if at all) to implement the Order, yet the district court preemptively decided that whatever the agencies may choose to do will necessarily be unlawful,” the Trump administration argued in its 116-page filing.

That’s essentially what the other panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia concluded in a ruling Tuesday when it upheld a lower court’s decision not to block the executive order — though the plaintiffs in that case are nonprofit groups and party committees rather than states.

“The scope of the issues at play” before the Supreme Court “are really, really narrow,” said Danielle Lang, vice president for voting rights and rule of law at the Campaign Legal Center, one of the lawyers involved in bringing the Washington, D.C. case.

And like Muller, Lang said it appears unlikely that the government would have the time to push through the changes before November.

“The kinds of dramatic changes they are asking for in election administration are not the kinds of things that you get done in a few months’ time,” Lang said. “As a practical reality, I don’t think they can do this in any non-chaotic way.”

If the Supreme Court were to side with the Trump administration this time, an army of lawyers across the country is prepared to again ask the courts to step in as soon as the new rules are finalized.

Even the appeals court judges in Washington that agreed the legal challenges were premature also suggested that they had some qualms about the executive order.

“Plaintiffs have identified a number of serious questions concerning the lawfulness of proposed actions if implemented on the threshold of the upcoming federal election,” the court said in its ruling.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Trump rehashes claims of election vulnerabilities, foreign interference, and fraud in primetime speech

2026-07-17T05:02:34+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

After days of speculation among election officials and experts about what President Donald Trump might say in a heavily hyped primetime speech on elections, Trump on Thursday night delivered a mix of familiar claims, grievances, and assertions about election security that stopped short of alleging that votes had been altered or that results had been changed.

Instead, Trump revived years-old evidence that China attempted to gather American voter data and that election systems are vulnerable to hacking, information that has long been public and that election officials said they have taken steps to mitigate. He also claimed to have identified 270,000 noncitizens on the voter rolls — election officials said they weren’t sure how that number was arrived at — and resurfaced old fraud allegations related to voter registration in Michigan.

In conjunction with Trump’s speech, his administration released newly declassified documents related to election integrity — some still heavily redacted — that in many cases did not fully back up the president’s claims.

“Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately,” Trump said, alleging that current election systems fall “catastrophically short of that standard.”

As he spoke, many secretaries of state from around the country were at dinner in South Dakota, closing out the summer meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State. Many did not watch the address, convinced after years of Trump’s election-related allegations that he was unlikely to say anything he hadn’t said before — though many staff members attending the conference did watch, and some secretaries issued statements later.

Trump concluded the speech by again calling for passage of the SAVE America Act, his top legislative priority, which would impose photo ID and proof-of-citizenship requirements on voters nationwide.

“The kids playing wizard in the park have a firmer grip on reality than any of this,” one Republican staff member said as he entered Mount Rushmore.

NASS bussed conference participants to the monument on Thursday night, shortly after Trump’s speech concluded, as part of a preplanned event on a day when red, white, and blue was the recommended dress code. Secretaries and their staff filtered past state flags into five reserved rows of seats as “Yankee Doodle Dandy” played and the sun set.

Election officials, experts respond to Trump’s election speech

Not all secretaries of state were in South Dakota, and some did watch the speech. “I have seen zero new facts. I have seen zero evidence backing any of these claims,” said Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat. “It appears to me to be a repackaged version of all of the stuff that we’ve known for years, and I was a little disappointed in the lack of new information.”

Election experts said the voting equipment vulnerabilities Trump appeared to be referring to in his speech have long been publicly known. “Everyone in this space knows that technology is vulnerable and works to put in safeguards and controls to secure it anyway,” said Geoff Hale, a visiting fellow for election security at the Center for Democracy & Technology, who previously worked for a decade at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Hale said he was still reviewing the documents released by the White House, but pointed out that nearly all Americans vote on systems that require a voter-verifiable paper ballot, to ensure a paper backup that can’t be hacked.

One declassified document, quoted by Trump in his speech, stated, “We judge that U.S. adversaries, including at a minimum Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, as well as non-state groups, have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure.” But Pam Smith, the president and CEO of Verified Voting, noted that some components of election infrastructure — such as public-facing election websites — are more vulnerable than others — such as voting machines. “There was a lot of conflation, it seemed to me, of different types of technology, the vast majority of which doesn’t actually affect election outcomes,” she said.

According to Trump, China also illicitly acquired the data of 220 million U.S. voters. However, voter data is widely publicly available, and it wasn’t clear from Trump’s speech whether he was alleging that voter registration databases were breached. Trump did allege that “members of the deep state” tried to downplay China’s acquisition of the data, “covering it up from both the president and the American people.”

Election officials from various states were quick to clarify that their data was secure. “I have no information, either from the federal government or anybody else, that Arizona’s voter information has been compromised,” Fontes told Votebeat.

The Chinese government didn’t steal any Wisconsin election data either, Wisconsin Elections Commission appointee Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said on X. “If they bought our voter data, that is public data and they are allowed to buy it. So can you! So can anyone!”

Trump makes new claims about noncitizen voters

One new, or at least more specific, claim made by Trump in the speech is that there are 270,000 noncitizens registered to vote nationwide. According to a Department of Homeland Security memo released after the speech, that number appears to mostly be derived from a review of public voter files in four states: California, Nevada, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat who heads the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, said his office hasn’t heard from the Department of Homeland Security. “We don’t even understand how they calculated those numbers,” he said, adding that Trump “truly does not understand elections, not even at the basic level.”

Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, a Republican, said in a statement that the state follows all laws and requires voters to take steps to verify their identity before casting a ballot, adding that “all evidence has shown that noncitizen voting is extremely rare across the country, including in Pennsylvania.”

“We welcome DHS sharing their methodology and list of potential ineligible voters so we can carefully review the validity of their claims,” Schmidt said.

The president and his allies have long alleged that voting by noncitizens is widespread, but election officials, audits, investigations, and academic research have found it to be extremely rare, and noncitizens who vote illegally are subject to criminal penalties and deportation.

Multiple states have audited their voter rolls and found tiny numbers of noncitizens registered, most of whom have never cast a ballot. Nonetheless, the Trump administration has made the search for noncitizen voters a driving force behind its election agenda. Last year, the administration revamped a Department of Homeland Security data tool, Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE, and encouraged states to use it to check their voter rolls for noncitizens.

States that did so reported finding relatively small numbers of potential noncitizens, and at least some of those flagged voters were later determined to be citizens, prompting many experts and election officials to warn that the SAVE program was unreliable.

For example, in Texas, officials flagged 2,724 potential noncitizens, some of whom county officials have determined are citizens, though it isn’t clear exactly how many. They’ve also found that hundreds of the flagged voters had registered through the Texas Department of Public Safety, which requires proof of citizenship, such as a passport, and keeps copies of such documents on file. In April, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson, a Republican, raised concerns about SAVE’s accuracy in a letter to federal officials.

In June, a federal judge blocked the overhaul of the SAVE program, saying it violated privacy and voting rights.

A Michigan case of suspected voter registration fraud

The president also spotlighted a six-year-old fraud allegation in Michigan as an example of election misconduct being “buried and covered up.”

Police reports showed that in the lead-up to the 2020 election, a woman working for a Tennessee-based company, GBI Strategies, submitted thousands of voter applications to the city clerk of Muskegon, a largely Democratic city. Most were legitimate, but the clerk identified irregularities with several hundred of them. The suspicious registrations were caught in time for the election.

The matter was initially investigated by Michigan State Police and Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office, but the investigation was turned over to the FBI in March 2021. The story made headlines at the time, but it was largely ignored on a broader scale until 2023, when a conservative news site amplified old reports about it, and it has been an occasional Republican talking point in the state since.

Nessel’s office said in a statement Thursday night that the incident provided a “perfect example of the system working exactly as it should,” meaning the clerk noticed suspected fraud and flagged it before anyone could vote improperly.

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state who is now running for governor, emphasized in a statement after the speech that the state’s elections are “secure and safe.”

“This was the case in 2020, 2022, 2024 and will be again in 2026,” she said in a release. “Because in every election, over 1,600 bipartisan professional election administrators and thousands of trained poll workers ensure that the law is followed and that every valid vote counts.”

Trump teases ‘very big announcement’ about elections, but it’s unclear what it will be

2026-07-16T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Election watchers are buzzing about President Donald Trump’s speech to the nation on Thursday night — but so far, no one has any concrete idea what he’s going to say.

The White House has scheduled a rare primetime address for Thursday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said the address would touch on multiple subjects but include a “very big announcement” about election security. “It’s really, really big news,” he said. “Without free and fair elections, you don’t have a country.”

Trump, of course, has said many things about the integrity of U.S. elections, few of them true. He has claimed repeatedly that voter fraud is rampant and cost him the 2020 election, despite numerous investigations and audits that have found no evidence of that.

Nevertheless, since Trump retook office last year, his administration has reopened investigations into that election on several fronts: The FBI seized ballots from an election office in Fulton County, Georgia; subpoenaed records from a partisan audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona; and has questioned election officials in Wisconsin. FBI Director Kash Patel said in April that the bureau would “soon” be making arrests in connection with the 2020 election, but those have yet to materialize.

The Department of Homeland Security is also investigating potential noncitizens on the voter rolls in Michigan, Texas, and other states. The Department of Justice recently sent letters to all 50 states warning election officials could be prosecuted if they knowingly keep noncitizens on the rolls.

The administration has also launched investigations into the security of voting machines. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence last year procured voting machines from Puerto Rico and probed them for security risks. Reuters reported the resulting report found vulnerabilities, such as machines running outdated software, but did not find evidence of vote manipulation.

Some reporting suggests Trump’s speech will focus on those alleged vulnerabilities. Reuters and MS NOW have reported that Trump will present newly declassified intelligence about voting machines and attempts at foreign interference in U.S. elections. A 2021 report from the Justice and Homeland Security departments found “no evidence that any foreign government-affiliated actor prevented voting, changed votes, or disrupted the ability to tally votes” in the 2020 election.

A National Intelligence Council report declassified in 2021 also found “no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of the voting process in the 2020 US elections, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation, or reporting results.”

The speech also comes exactly one week after Trump fired all three remaining members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, the agency responsible for certifying voting machines to voluntary federal guidelines that most states rely on. Reuters subsequently reported that Trump administration officials were frustrated with the commissioners’ inaction on voting machines and had been looking for ways to circumvent the agency for months.

For now, the White House is staying tight-lipped. “As usual, anonymous sources are speculating about what President Trump will say during his speech on Thursday evening,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The truth is, nobody knows yet what President Trump will ultimately say, which is why everyone should tune in.”

One key question is whether Trump will actually announce a new policy or action. Preparations for the 2026 midterms are already well underway, and election officials would likely not be able to implement any major new policies in time.

Even if Trump does announce a new policy, he may not have the legal authority to order it. He has already issued two executive orders attempting to overhaul U.S. election procedures, including one last year that ordered the EAC to ban voting machines that use barcodes or QR codes for counting, with limited exceptions for voters with disabilities. But courts have blocked all their major provisions on the grounds that the president does not have the authority to unilaterally change election law. Instead, the Constitution delegates election rule-making to state legislatures and Congress.

Trump has repeatedly pressured Congress to enact his preferred election policies by passing the SAVE America Act and similar legislation, but they do not have enough support in the Senate to pass. It’s possible that a goal of Trump’s speech is primarily to ratchet up that pressure. When Newsmax asked him to give a preview of the speech in an interview on Monday, Trump responded by saying, “We gotta have voter ID, we gotta have proof of citizenship” — two provisions of the SAVE America Act — “and we have to do something about the mail-in ballots, which are just corrupt, crooked, and should not be allowed.”

Even if Trump does not try to use the speech to unveil new election policies, he could still use it to undermine the 2026 elections by sowing doubt about the legitimacy of U.S. elections in general. Election experts have decried Trump’s fearmongering around elections as attempts to intimidate election officials and lay the groundwork for challenging an unfavorable result.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Trump move to neutralize election administration agency creates chilling effect, but its impact may be muted

2026-07-13T15:04:46+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

President Donald Trump’s abrupt removal Thursday of the three remaining members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission leaves the agency unable to make key policy decisions, but is unlikely to disrupt preparations for the November elections, according to former staff members and election analysts.

Still, even though Trump’s move won’t bring the agency to a halt, it has created concerns that the president might take further steps to weaken the agency that distributes congressionally-apportioned election funding to states and certifies voting equipment.

The White House declined on Friday to give more detail on its reasons for dismissing the commissioners or explain what the president hoped to achieve by stripping the election oversight agency of its ability to enact changes to policy and voting system guidelines. But the move came at a time of rising concern over how the Trump administration could attempt to influence the outcome of November’s midterm elections.

Benjamin Hovland, one of the two Democratic commissioners fired by Trump, said it would be “challenging to operate without commissioners or a quorum.” Because the agency is small and lightly funded, commissioners play a much larger hands-on role than they do at many other federal agencies, he added. Still, he said, “There is a great team there and they’ll keep doing this work.”

Hovland was sitting at an airport waiting for a cancelled flight on Thursday when he got an unexpected two-sentence email from the White House letting him know he had been fired. Hovland said no one from the Trump administration had been in touch with him since they took control in 2025.

When the U.S. Supreme Court last month gave the president unprecedented new power to fire leaders of independent agencies, Hovland said he figured he would be dismissed “sooner rather than later.”

What the EAC can still do

Ryan Macias, an election technology expert who oversaw federal certification of voting systems at the EAC from 2016 to 2019, said the dismissals were likely to have little or no impact on the day-to-day business at the commission.

States are still expected to get federal election funding already in the pipeline for the November election, which is disbursed according to already-set formulas. While many states rely on the EAC’s federal certification of voting systems, the testing and certification of voting systems does not require action by the commissioners, meaning voting systems can continue to be tested, updated and certified to the standards commissioners had previously adopted, Macias said. Three commissioners would have to approve any updates or changes to the current guidelines.

Commissioners do play a role in some parts of the certification process, at least theoretically. If a voting system vendor disputes the outcome or process of a certification decision, commissioners would hear the appeal. But, Macias said, that’s never happened.

Trump’s actions could also renew debate in Congress over shutting down the EAC, which has been the target of repeated closure efforts, though those have quieted in recent years.

The EAC was created by Congress in response to the disputed, chaotic 2000 presidential election, whose outcome was ultimately decided by a Supreme Court ruling. The agency provides support to states by distributing federal election funds, maintaining the national mail voter registration form, testing and certifying voting systems, and offering best practices and guidance to state and local election officials.

The agency has a four-member commission split between Democrats and Republicans, and most major decisions require an affirmative vote from at least three. Commissioners are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Hovland’s nomination process took around 9 months, and was on the shorter side. Even if Trump moves quickly to nominate replacements, the agency appears unlikely to regain a quorum before the November election.

This is not the first time the EAC has operated without a quorum, though it is the first time it has been left with no commissioners at all. Between 2010 and 2015, the agency lacked enough commissioners to take official action after the Senate stopped confirming nominees — and some congressional leaders stopped recommending them — as lawmakers debated whether the agency should continue to exist. That prolonged vacancy delayed updates to the federal voting system guidelines and left the commission unable to take many policy actions.

Election officials see little immediate disruption

For election officials, the consensus is that the firings are unlikely to disrupt this year’s elections. But several said the longer-term implications are harder to forecast, particularly if the administration takes additional steps to reshape or weaken the agency.

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat who is a member of the EAC Board of Advisors, called the agency a valuable partner since it was created in 2002.

“I do not expect the changes at the EAC to have any immediate impact on the administration of elections in Minnesota or across the country,” he said. “Yet, the loss of the entire EAC leadership is another canary in the coal mine – and I urge Americans to take notice.”

Aaron Blacksberg, federal policy counsel at the Institute for Responsive Government, said Trump’s moves might not have a major impact on the upcoming elections, but suggested that they should be seen in the broader context of Trump’s widespread efforts to eliminate government election integrity programs and cast doubt on elections where Democrats fare well.

“In the short term, it’s another chilling effect,” Blacksberg said. “I don’t think there’s going to be an end to or a deescalation to these actions as the election gets closer.”

Hovland, who served seven years on the commission, defended the agency’s work.

“We weren’t perfect, and we weren’t a silver bullet, but we were someone in the federal government that was still trying to help,” he said. “I am so proud of the team and the agency.” He added, “I feel like people lose sight of why Congress created the EAC.”

Jessica Huseman contributed reporting.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Trump administration asks federal judge to quickly lift ban on planned mail voting restrictions

2026-07-02T17:29:31+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

The Trump administration is asking a federal judge to quickly lift her recent ruling against major provisions of a presidential executive order on elections, arguing in an appeal that the court’s action will effectively prevent the government from putting new voting restrictions in place before the November election.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani halted President Donald Trump’s efforts to create centralized lists of adult citizens and give the U.S. Postal Service unprecedented authority over who can vote by mail. Her 37-page ruling concluded that the president did not have the constitutional authority to regulate state elections, as his March executive order tried to do.

The executive order directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration to create a nationwide list of verified U.S. citizens over 18, and thus presumably eligible to vote in federal elections. It also called on the U.S. Postal Service to create a system to handle and accept mail-in ballots only from voters on preapproved lists.

Talwani’s order prevents the federal government from enforcing those provisions of the order against the 24 jurisdictions (23 states and the District of Columbia) whose attorneys general and governors brought the lawsuit in federal court in Massachusetts. The list includes most Democratic-led and swing states, including Arizona, California, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

This week, the Trump administration appealed Talwani’s ruling to the First Circuit Court of Appeals and said it is still proceeding with its efforts to set up the new system for the rest of the states. But it warned that the judge’s order will make it impossible for the U.S. Postal Service to create a bifurcated system for the November election, even if the administration ultimately prevails on appeal. Government attorneys asked Talwani to lift her ban by Monday.

The request for a quick decision suggests that the Trump administration may be trying to speed things up so the case reaches the U.S. Supreme Court as soon as possible.

“Operationally, it would not be possible for us to put a two-tiered system in place where one set of rules apply to the ballot mail of the Plaintiff States, and another applies to the remaining states,” Steven Monteith, the Postal Service’s chief customer and marketing officer and executive vice president, said in a court filing. “Doing so would cause operational confusion and significantly increase the complexity and efficiency of implementing any final rule.”

But the Trump administration’s nationwide efforts to use the Postal Service to regulate who gets ballots also hit a separate legal roadblock this week when another federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled that the executive order violates a years-old agreement requiring the federal government to ensure voters who request mail-in ballots get them in time to ensure they can be counted.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan concluded that the Trump administration’s plans to send ballots only to voters on preapproved lists breached a 2021 agreement between the Postal Service and the NAACP meant to ensure that the agency prioritized ballot delivery. In contrast to Talwani’s ruling, Sullivan’s decision applies nationwide.

“These proposed rules directly undermine commitments that the Postal Service made to ensure mail-in ballots are delivered and counted,” said Anthony Ashton, senior associate general counsel for the NAACP, in a statement.

The U.S. Postal Service and Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Mohave County will debut new ballot paper with added security measures in July primary

2026-07-02T13:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

Officials in Mohave County, Arizona, walked into a public meeting last year with bad news for their bosses.

The rural, bright-red county wanted to adopt a type of ballot paper with watermarks, embedded fibers, microprinting, and other security features for future elections. Its elected supervisors had previously voted to approve a new contract for such paper with Runbeck Election Services, a voting materials company in Phoenix, because they firmly believed the change would improve voter confidence.

But election officials had recently tested the paper, called Ballot Guard, with the county’s vote-tabulating machines and found that it wasn’t performing as hoped.

A team of staffers took the podium to lay out the situation. The paper, they said, caused the tabulators to pull multiple pages at once, leading to paper jams and other errors that required rerunning ballots. ES&S, the company that manufactured the county’s tabulators, had done its own tests and seen similar results.

Elections Director Allen Tempert warned that using the paper in a live election could significantly slow results and increase the possibility of inaccurate tallies. He urged the county’s all-Republican board of supervisors to consider another type of paper that included watermarks and had already worked successfully elsewhere.

The board appeared open to considering the alternative. But months later, another round of testing returned improved results. In January, with election officials’ blessing, supervisors voted unanimously to use Ballot Guard in upcoming elections.

“It works well,” Tempert told Votebeat, adding that he was “comfortable” with county supervisors’ decision.

Now, the stage is set for a make-or-break moment in the state’s northwest corner — starting with the state primary, scheduled for July 21. A successful debut could inspire other counties to pick up the paper. But if the paper causes problems, it could lead to an election night mess — and deal a major blow to Republicans’ longstanding efforts to encourage such security features on ballots across the state.

From bamboo to Ballot Guard: How election security concerns inspired new ballot paper

In Arizona, the push to put security marks on ballots began with a widespread conspiracy.

After the 2020 presidential election, false claims began circulating that someone had flown fake ballots from Asia to Maricopa County to rig the race for President Joe Biden. That prompted auditors assisting with a GOP-led review of the county’s election results to shine blacklights on ballots in search of bamboo fibers or watermarks.

No bamboo ballots were ever found. Arizona has a plethora of checks to ensure only ballots cast by registered voters are counted. There’s no evidence that counterfeit ballots have ever found their way into the state’s elections.

But since that episode, some GOP state lawmakers — including then-state Sen. Sonny Borrelli, who now serves on the Mohave County Board of Supervisors — have repeatedly tried, and failed, to pass legislation requiring security features on ballots.

Nationally, California has long used ballot paper with watermarks. In recent years, the push for such paper has also caught on some swing states. Georgia now requires watermarks on its ballots. In Michigan, some counties have chosen to do the same.

But Mohave County would be the first in the country to use Ballot Guard specifically. In recent elections, leaders there have also considered hand-counting ballots and voting against certifying vote tallies.

Board Chair Travis Lingenfelter, a Republican, told Votebeat that his constituents were deeply concerned about election integrity and hesitant to trust election results. He believes the new paper can help assuage those fears — particularly if other jurisdictions are inspired to pick it up, too.

Mohave County Supervisor Travis Lingenfelter, pictured at a Nov. 20, 2023 meeting, told Votebeat that his constituents were hesitant to trust election results. He and other county leaders believe using a new type of ballot paper with anti-counterfeiting measures will improve voter confidence.

Lingenfelter said the county’s contract with Runbeck was purposefully structured as a cooperative one. A number of counties — including Maricopa, the state’s most populous county and a key swing region — use it to procure their own voting materials, and any of them could opt to use Ballot Guard in the future.

A spokesperson for the Maricopa County Elections Department said it currently had no plans to use the paper. Still, Lingenfelter said he hoped other counties might follow Mohave’s lead if it proves the paper can be used successfully.

“I feel like Mohave County is contributing positively to this big overarching issue of voter confidence and election integrity,” he said, adding that his county was “proud” to serve as a trailblazer.

Ballot Guard won’t cost Mohave County any money — for now

While legislation to require security features on Arizona ballots never passed, the state did greenlight a $1 million grant program in 2022 that offered counties a chance to test out ballot paper with specialized security features.

Former Cochise County Recorder David Stevens signed up for that program, but he didn’t anticipate how long it would take to get up and running. He missed the grant’s deadline, and county officials decided to scrap the project.

But Stevens had already used grant funding to pay Runbeck to order 10 tons of ballot paper and commission a giant watermarking machine. The county’s decision left that paper sitting unused on the floor of the company’s warehouse in Phoenix.

Since then, the county had been grappling with what to do with it. Cochise County Recorder Billy Cloud urged local leaders to give it away, noting that the paper wasn’t of use to the county anymore. So in May, Cochise chose to transfer its paper to Mohave County, free of charge.

Mohave will now use that same exact paper to print its ballots for upcoming elections. Tempert and Interim Elections Director Karina Sumner — who is set to replace Tempert when he retires on July 4 — said the paper should get the county through the state primary and general election.

“For 2026, it’s a wash,” Tempert said. “We ain’t paying no more money in 2026.”

But the county could see increased election costs in 2028. Tempert said Ballot Guard costs up to 15 cents more per ballot than the county’s usual paper. There are approximately 150,000 registered voters in the county, so that could add up to an extra $22,500 per general election.

That represents a tiny fraction of Mohave County’s $600 million budget. Still, the county has long faced revenue challenges. In recent years, it has at times needed to institute temporary hiring and employee travel freezes to stave off budget deficits.

Nonetheless, officials appeared undeterred. Lingenfelter said that because his county had coordinated a cooperative contract with Runbeck, it gets a small revenue kickback if other counties sign on. He said that should help the county offset its costs.

Officials say paper is working well, despite mixed test results

In initial tests, the difference between Mohave County’s typical ballot paper and Ballot Guard was stark.

Officials found that the new paper was prone to so-called “multi-feed” and “pick” errors, both of which occur when a tabulator accidentally grabs more than one ballot at a time. On average, 3.6% of ballots printed on the new paper saw multi-feed errors and about 0.8% saw pick errors — far higher error rates than that of the county’s usual ballot paper.

In 2024, about 111,000 voters cast ballots in the county. Officials estimated it would have taken up to six hours longer to count those ballots if they were printed on the new paper, a notable timesuck for a department with just a handful of full-time employees.

“In conclusion, though the Ballot Guard paper properly tabulates every time, we would not recommend its use,” officials wrote in a testing report that they presented on Sept. 15. “The process is significantly slowed by multifeeds and pick errors, which would not happen on original Runbeck paper stock. The security added by the paper is irrelevant when counterfeit votes would never make it to the ballot tabulators in the first place.”

Later, Sumner said Runbeck hypothesized that the errors may have been the result of static electricity in the stacks of testing paper. Static causes ballots to stick together, but the issue could be solved by letting the paper sit out for a day or two.

In December, the company sent the county more paper — this time, letting it rest before shipping it out. When election officials tested ballots with that batch of paper, Sumner said, they saw dramatically improved results. On average, just 0.7% of the ballots were met with multi-feed errors, and another 0.7% with pick error messages.

That’s still more than the 0.3% and 0.0% error rates that the county’s regular paper encountered in initial testing, on average. But Sumner noted that multi-feed and pick errors happen in live elections no matter what type of paper is being used. The error rates seen with the new paper, she said, shouldn’t slow officials down too much in the counting process.

As a result, election officials say they are now on board with Ballot Guard. “The limited multi-feed and pick error rates are deemed acceptable for ballot feed errors with ballot tabulation,” a January test report read.

Katina Granger, a spokesperson for ES&S, said the company still doesn’t recommend the paper for use with its tabulators. Ballot Guard does not meet the same specifications as its recommended paper stock, she said.

“We’ve identified several differences in physical characteristics, like surface texture, thickness, stiffness, coating, and fiber composition, which can impact how ballots move through the equipment and are scanned,” Granger said, adding that ES&S had communicated “potential performance risks” to Mohave County. “We recommend jurisdictions use paper with specifications within the recommended parameters to guarantee performance.”

But Sumner said the paper has also been tested during pre-election audits and ran smoothly. She said she was confident that the paper will work well in upcoming elections.

“It’s not going to affect the tabulation or the results at all,” she said. “It’s all going to be fine.”

Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org.

Supreme Court allows states to accept mail ballots after Election Day, rejecting Republican challenge to voting access

2026-06-29T16:38:52+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states can count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, as long as they are properly postmarked — a key victory for voting rights advocates and another setback to President Donald Trump’s efforts to crack down on absentee voting.

In an uncommon 5-4 ruling, the justices found that nothing in federal law prevents states from enacting grace periods for absentee ballots to be received, as long as they are actually cast and mailed by Election Day. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia currently have such grace periods.

The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, centered on a Mississippi law that allowed ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted as long as they arrived up to five business days later. The national and state Republican parties challenged the law in 2024, arguing that, because Election Day is set by federal law, states should not be about to count ballots received after it.

Live event: Will the midterms happen? Your election questions, answered

A federal judge initially upheld Mississippi’s law, but an appeals court sided with the Republicans who challenged the ballot rules. Mississippi then brought its case to the Supreme Court in March.

The high court eventually sided with Mississippi. “The electorate’s choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the majority opinion. “The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose.”

The ruling crossed ideological lines, with conservatives Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joining liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor in the majority.

The status-quo ruling was good news for those who worried that eliminating the absentee-ballot grace period would disenfranchise voters. A Votebeat analysis of data from 11 of the 15 jurisdictions with grace periods found that more than 745,000 absentee ballots arrived after Election Day in 2024, representing no more than roughly 3 percent of the total vote in any state.

“The Court’s decision is a direct message to all voters who rely on mail ballots, including military and overseas voters, rural voters, seniors, and people with disabilities: Your voices matter equally to voters who can easily access a polling place,” said Pamela Smith, president of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan voting security group. “This ruling ensures that a postal delay outside of any voter’s control does not erase a lawfully cast ballot and supports election officials’ ability to capture the will of voters.”

Carolina Lopez, executive director of the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions, said she was pleasantly surprised by the court ruling. She said the decision would come as a relief to election administrators who weren’t sure when the absentee ballot receipt deadlines would be in their states.

“For election offices, this clarity matters,” she said.

Republicans, however, criticized the ruling. “Democrats are inviting chaos at the ballot box by allowing elections to drag on for days and weeks after voters cast their ballots,” Joe Gruters, chairman of the RNC, said in a statement. “Republicans are not going to be deterred by this decision, and the RNC will keep fighting to have elections end on Election Day as Americans want.”

In a post on social media, Trump called the ruling a “tremendous loss” and said it should be a catalyst for Congress to pass his long-stalled election overhaul, the SAVE America Act.

“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump wrote. Studies show that mail voting fraud is exceedingly rare, accounting for only 0.000043% of total mail ballots cast, on average, in the 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 general elections.

Trump has long criticized mail-in ballots, blaming them for delayed election results and arguing unsuccessfully in court that they cost him the 2020 presidential election.

“We should know the result of the election on Nov. 3, the evening of Nov. 3,” Trump said on the campaign trail in 2020. “That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it should be.”

As post-Election Day vote tallies in key states that year showed a swing toward Democrat Joe Biden, Trump called for a halt to counting ballots. The late swing reflected timing, not fraud: Studies show misinformation made Republicans more wary of mail voting in 2020, so later-counted mail ballots skewed Democratic.

“STOP THE COUNT!” Trump wrote on social media two days after Election Day. “ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!”

Last year, Trump issued an executive order that gave the federal government power to withhold federal funding to states that allowed ballots to be counted if they arrived after Election Day. Several states sued over the order, and federal courts have largely blocked it from taking effect.

On Monday, conservative Justice Samuel Alito embraced Trump’s arguments in his dissent. Alito argued that the ruling “creates a serious risk of further undermining public confidence in our elections and our system of self-government.”

In the wake of the ruling, Mississippi’s Republican attorney general urged the state legislature to eliminate the state’s grace period anyway.

“I am hopeful that the Mississippi Legislature will take this opportunity to amend the law and require absentee ballots be received on the same day ballots are cast at the polling place,” said Attorney General Lynn Fitch. “President Trump is right to prioritize improving public trust in our elections.”

During two hours of oral arguments in March, some conservative Supreme Court justices pressed the lawyers about whether late-arriving ballots could create the perception of voter fraud. At the time, Alito asked whether “confidence in outcomes can be seriously undermined if the apparent outcome of the election on the day after the polls close is radically flipped by the acceptance later of a big stash of ballots that flip the election.”

“We don’t have Election Day anymore,” Alito said. “We have election month, or we have election months.”

The more liberal justices questioned the impact that nullifying Mississippi’s law could have on voting by Americans and soldiers living overseas.

“You believe that absentee voting by the military and overseas voters, the… federal laws under which states have proceeded with respect to those votes are illegal?” asked Sotomayor.

Dion Nissenbaum is a senior national reporter for Votebeat and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Trump administration’s search for noncitizen voter fraud is driving its election agenda

2026-06-22T11:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Every week, it feels like President Donald Trump’s administration is making a new piece of news about elections. It is investigating past elections in at least four states. It is exploring what feels like every possible avenue to get ahold of voter data in individual states and counties. It is attempting to create new administrative hurdles to mail voting and prioritizing major voting legislation over all else.

But it all ties back to one thing: the repeated assertions from the president and his allies that noncitizens are voting in significant numbers.

No evidence has emerged to support that. Election officials and experts have repeatedly said those assertions are false and such cases are rare. But they appear to be the animating force behind everything the administration is doing.

Scattered reports that investigators for the Department of Homeland Security are requesting detailed data on individual registered voters confirm the administration’s ongoing focus on finding and prosecuting any such cases.

Earlier this month, the New York Times reported that the Justice Department was pressing prosecutors to focus on 90 open investigations into potential noncitizens voting as a top priority. Federal prosecutors have already brought some cases against individuals that officials are touting, including one in Louisiana last week.

But despite the administration’s zeal, it isn’t clear how many such cases there are to bring. States have run more than 60 million records of registered voters through a revamped federal immigration database that the administration has encouraged state election officials to use to validate the citizenship of registered voters, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That’s around a third of the voters registered in the U.S., according to estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Out of those, the department told Votebeat, the system has flagged around 24,000 as potential noncitizens — about 0.04%. All those cases “have been referred to ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations for further investigation,” the department said in a statement.

As Votebeat reported in April, the Department of Homeland Security is sending subpoenas to local elections officials in Texas, searching for detailed information about individual voters. Investigators have also contacted at least one county in North Carolina, a development reported last week by Axios.

The Department of Homeland Security said it is “actively rooting out and investigating election fraud wherever it can be found,” and declined to comment on specific cases.

Twenty-four thousand potential cases sounds like a lot, but election officials have already found that at least some of those potential noncitizens have turned out to be citizens.

It also isn’t clear how many of those people have actually voted. Experts across the political spectrum agree that noncitizens who don’t understand the laws may accidentally register to vote, so that in and of itself is not necessarily a sign of intentional fraud. The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to questions about how many cases of noncitizen voting the agency has documented, or how many registered voters flagged as potential noncitizens have turned out to be citizens.

But administration officials and those who support the investigations have been quick to dismiss questions about whether the small number of cases means noncitizen voting isn’t a big issue.

Last weekend, CNN anchor Kasie Hunt asked Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin about data from the conservative Heritage Foundation that showed only 25 cases of people being prosecuted for voter fraud where citizenship was an issue.

“Well, 25 is too many,” said Mullin. “It’s kind of like one illegal death, one individual that dies from the hands of an illegal is one too many. It’s all preventable. One person voting illegally is one too many. We shouldn’t have to worry about even one.”

Justin Riemer, president of Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, a conservative nonprofit focused on voting issues, agreed with Mullin’s perspective.

“Why is it such a bad thing that they are enforcing federal law?” Riemer said. “To me, any election crime is serious and needs to be prosecuted. I don’t think it’s a good system that this happens, regardless of how often it happens.”

Ken Cuccinelli, who during the first Trump administration was acting deputy secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, said outside investigations are no substitute for federal investigations that have much more authority to examine potential fraud.

“It may be that they bring nothing of it and that will tell us more than anything else, but I suspect that’s unlikely,” he said.

Ultimately, Cuccinelli said, “this is as much about confidence in who is participating in the voter rolls and whether our states themselves are helping, hiding, or hurting the security and transparency of our elections system.”

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School who worked in the White House on democracy and voting rights issues under Joe Biden, characterized the Trump administration’s search as an unproductive hunt for a “boogeyman” to cast doubt on American elections.

“The notion that noncitizens are voting in elections in sufficient quantities to swing those elections, particularly in statewide contests, is a fiction,” he said.

Lorraine Minnite, a Rutgers University political science professor and author of a book on voter fraud, suggested that the Trump administration investigations were an effort to create “maximum chaos and intimidation” across the country.

“The picture of the federal government sending Homeland Security to investigate is such overkill that you have to believe that they are trying to create a spectacle to intimidate people and go on a fishing expedition using bad data,” she said.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

FBI probe of Ohio voting rights group expands to include an affiliated national advocacy network

2026-06-17T20:44:16+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Update, June 17, 6:55 p.m.: This story has been updated with a statement from America Votes.

Federal officials have served a subpoena on one of the nation’s leading nonprofit voter outreach groups, which has financially supported the Ohio election advocacy group at the center of a deepening investigation by the Trump administration, according to a source familiar with the probe.

The FBI served the subpoena on America Votes, a Washington-based organization founded by prominent Democratic leaders that works to turn out voters nationwide, the sources said.

America Votes, which has given the Ohio Organizing Collaborative at least $500,000 in recent years, according to its tax filings, issued a statement Wednesday confirming it had received a subpoena “asking for basic records related to funding of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative. We have been informed America Votes is not a target of the investigation.”

The subpoena signals a broader FBI investigation into the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a statewide nonprofit group founded in 2007 that works on voting rights efforts. The Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s sister organization, Ohio Organizing Campaign, said it registered nearly 160,000 Ohio voters in 2024, describing the effort as the largest independent voter registration program in the country.

Prentiss Haney, an Ohio Organizing Collaborative board member and former director of the group, said the FBI appeared to be seeking information from America Votes and other voting rights groups that worked with his organization.

“This is very far reaching,” he said. “They seem to be fishing for any- and everything related to civil rights and voting rights infrastructure.”

The FBI and Justice Department did not respond to emails seeking comment. Last week, FBI special agents searched the Ohio Organizing Collaborative’s offices and questioned staff members and volunteers about potential voter registration fraud, according to Haney and others familiar with the investigation.

Haney said he did not know the full extent of the FBI investigation.

The FBI probe comes amid rising concerns ahead of the November midterm election about Trump administration efforts to question the legitimacy of voting in America. Trump has repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that voter fraud cost him the 2020 presidential election. Most recently, he accused Democrats, again without evidence, of rigging results in the California primary earlier this month.

FBI agents have seized ballots from the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, Georgia, and secured election records in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, has been at the forefront of efforts among elections officials to scrutinize potential voter fraud. Last year, LaRose referred more than 1,200 cases to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, largely related to alleged unlawful voter registration of voting activity. LaRose said he found more than 1,000 noncitizens who had registered to vote, including 167 noncitizens who appeared to have voted in federal elections between 2018 and 2024.

But the figures represent allegations, not yet proven cases. Previous batches of LaRose voter-fraud referrals have produced few prosecutions: AP reported that of 621 criminal referrals sent to Ohio’s attorney general, prosecutors secured indictments against only nine people for voting as noncitizens over a decade.

Voter fraud is exceedingly rare across the country and studies, audits, and court cases have found no evidence that it occurs at anything close to the scale needed to alter modern statewide or federal election outcomes except in very unusual cases.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Trump’s moves to erect voting hurdles face race against the clock

2026-06-15T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

President Donald Trump is in a race against time.

Since returning to office last year, Trump has repeatedly tried to remake American elections, including by issuing two executive orders that would erect new federal rules and restrictions on voting and various aspects of elections. Voting rights advocates and a variety of states have filed lawsuits that have already frozen key tentpoles of Trump’s first executive order on voting and could do the same for the second. If Trump wants to see these measures impact this November’s elections, his administration has to move fast.

In recent days, the Trump administration has taken new steps to erect the architecture it would need to implement key pieces of the president’s most recent election executive order, which called in March for the Department of Homeland Security to create “State Citizenship Lists” of all U.S. citizens who are over 18.

In response to the order, the Department of Homeland Security unveiled plans to set up a special system by the end of this month — then revised its plans just days later, showing how quickly the administration is moving to try and put these measures in place.

The executive order also calls on the U.S. Postal Service to set up a new process where it could block voters from receiving mail-in ballots if they are not on a vetted list provided to the federal government 60 days before an election, and the agency has proposed new rules to do so. Many election officials say the move could cause chaos, and is beyond the president’s authority.

Setting aside the constitutional questions around the efforts, voting rights advocates say that it could be practically very difficult for the agencies involved to create a workable system before the November election.

“Elections are like a battleship, it’s not like you can turn them around on the fly,” said Rick Hasen, a UCLA political science professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project. “It seems exceedingly unlikely that any of this will be in place by November.”

The administration’s court filings hint at some of the difficulties.

On Friday, June 5, the Trump administration filed a four-paragraph notice to a court in Boston overseeing a legal challenge to the March executive order. In that notice, the Department of Homeland Security said it was moving ahead with plans to allow states to check voter eligibility by submitting their entire voter lists to a federal database known as Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE.

It also said the department would create a portal that would allow state election officials to “securely access citizenship-related data” from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, the Social Security Administration, and the U.S. Department of State — by June 30.

But three days later, this past Monday, the Trump administration changed plans and filed a new notice with the court, outlining a new memorandum rescinding the previously stated policies. Per the notice, that memo walks back some of the specifics of the earlier implementation plan, promising only to provide by June 30 “a mechanism for States to receive secure, state-focused citizenship-related information from each agency.”

The previously mentioned portal would come sometime later this year, the revised notice said, and the new memo also rescinded the proposal that would let states submit their voter rolls to SAVE because, the notice said, that approach wasn’t specifically called for in the executive order.

Some states have already used the system — which was previously used to verify immigrants’ eligibility for benefits — to check voter eligibility after the administration revamped the database and vigorously encouraged states to do so, but others have questioned the accuracy of the SAVE system and declined to use it.

The initial notice also said that the Homeland Security department “contemplates working with” the U.S. Postal Service to access its data on mail ballots and use it to “monitor mail-in and absentee ballot flows, identify anomalies that may suggest voter fraud or misuse, and generate authorized investigative leads.”

In the second notice, the administration instead told the court the two agencies were having “preliminary conversations” on potential data-sharing, and decisions would be contingent on final legal and policy determinations.

Beyond the logistical challenges, the proposals are facing legal challenges that could block them from taking effect. A coalition of Democratic party committees and some nonprofit groups have challenged the Trump executive order as unconstitutional. And while a federal judge in Washington, D.C. declined to immediately halt major provisions in that case, a federal judge in Boston could still do so. That judge expressed concerns last month during a hearing on a separate case brought by Democratic officials from twenty-three states, the District of Columbia, and a different group of nonprofits, and is expected to rule soon.

John Davisson, deputy director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, called the latest Trump administration move “a five-alarm fire for the protection of privacy and voting rights” across the country.

“Building a citizenship registry is beyond the federal government’s power, illegal under the Privacy Act, impossible to construct without introducing catastrophic error, and guaranteed to cause untold numbers of perfectly legal voters to be denied their right to vote if implemented,” he said.

The Trump administration says its efforts are a way to integrate federal systems to help ensure there is no fraud in the country’s electoral system.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment. In April, Lauren Bis, a spokesperson, said SAVE “is a critical tool for state and local governments to safeguard the integrity of elections across the country.” The Trump administration has sued a majority of U.S. states in an effort to secure access to their voter registration databases.

Votebeat Brunch: Is your election rigged? Separating fact from fiction.

California’s primary election set off a new wave of unsubstantiated allegations — including from Trump — that the vote was rigged. To separate fact from fiction, Votebeat spoke to Renee DiResta, an associate research professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy and an expert in disinformation. DiResta served for five years as technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and co-led a nonpartisan Election Integrity Partnership that studied misinformation during the 2020 election. The interview was conducted in writing and has been lightly edited for clarity, brevity, and style.

Q: The California election has triggered a new flood of unsupported allegations that the vote is rigged. What advice do you have for voters trying to separate fact from fiction?

Many election rumors spread because they are emotionally compelling, not because they’re supported by facts. When people encounter a claim that an election was “rigged,” they should ask a few questions:

- What is the original source of the claim?

- Is there any evidence, or just screenshots, anecdotes, or speculation? “It just seems weird” isn’t evidence.

- Have election officials, courts, or independent observers said anything?

- Do multiple credible sources support the claim?

People should also be careful about treating isolated irregularities as proof of widespread fraud. Every election has some mistakes, and administrative errors. Those are not automatically evidence that they were manipulated. Officials will often explain what happened quickly, but you sometimes have to go check because their posts generally don’t go viral. A useful rule of thumb is: The stronger the claim, the stronger the evidence must be.

Q: What are some tools people can use to get reliable information amid a flood of misinformation?

A good starting point is official election information from state and local election offices, since they can provide direct information about procedures, vote counting, and certification, and they know the local rules better than anyone else. Fact checks are helpful as well. Keep in mind that getting answers takes time. Asking an AI for facts isn’t going to get you an immediate answer in most cases because it has to work with what’s out there, too. Asking Grok or another AI can help, but it’s sometimes dependent on how recent or specific the issue is. Be wary and double check, or check again later.

Q: Is there more state and federal officials should be doing to address election misinformation?

Election officials who communicate quickly and responsively about voting procedures, counting, audits, and certification tend to leave less room for rumors to thrive. Communicating in advance can help, too. And strengthening influencer disclosure rules would go a long way toward shifting incentives.

Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.

Republican legislators put measure to change voting procedures on November ballot

2026-06-13T16:57:48+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

In a contentious late-night vote, the Republican-controlled Arizona Legislature on Friday placed a measure on the November ballot that, if passed by voters, would significantly alter voting in the state.

The measure, HCR 2001, would make various changes to voting procedures, most notably requiring all voters, even those who vote by mail, to provide “valid government-issued proof of identity.” If voters approve the measure, it would take effect in 2028.

State lawmakers voted along party lines to pass the referral, also known as the Fast, Accurate, Secure, Transparent Election Results Act. In Arizona, legislators can refer measures to the ballot with a simple majority vote in both chambers, bypassing Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ veto pen.

State law already mandates that voters casting ballots in person show photo ID or two non-photo documents bearing their name and address, such as a utility bill. But the vast majority of the state’s voters cast ballots by mail. State law currently does not require these voters to provide ID, although they do have to provide identification upon registering to vote and sign their ballot envelopes when voting. Those signatures are then compared against their signatures on file to safeguard against voter fraud.

It’s unclear exactly how mail voters might prove their identity should the measure pass in November. State Rep. Alex Kolodin, a Scottsdale Republican who sponsored the legislation in the Arizona House and is running for secretary of state, told members of the Senate Judiciary and Election Committee in March that there were “many potential options,” including a system by which county recorders would issue each voter a unique identification number and require them to write the last four digits of it on their ballot envelope.

He suggested state lawmakers should revisit the topic next year if voters approve the measure.

The measure is part of a national movement by Republicans to restrict voting by mail. Earlier this week, the GOP-controlled Ohio legislature passed a similar photo ID requirement for mail voters, sending it to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March giving the U.S. Postal Service unprecedented oversight over mail voting. That order has been challenged in court, and it remains to be seen if it will be implemented for the 2026 election.

“For years, the people of Arizona have been calling out for real election reform,” Kolodin said in March, adding that tightening voter ID requirements was also a priority of the Trump administration. “This measure gives them the opportunity to take it into their own hands.”

Voter ID measure aims to speed up vote-counting

Among the other changes the measure would make is the one that inspired its acronym, the FAST Election Results Act.

It would require counties to give voters who drop off their mail ballot at a polling place on Election Day the option to have their ballot counted on site, rather than transported back to a central location for tabulation. That could speed up the reporting of election results without “even a minor inconvenience” to voters, per Kolodin.

A similar law, passed in 2024, just took effect this year. That law gives mail voters the option to show ID when dropping off their ballot, eliminating the need to check their signature later.

But unlike state lawmakers’ proposal, that law does not require counties to physically count those ballots at voting sites. Most counties currently transport all ballots back to a central election office after voting ends to tabulate them.

Jen Marson, executive director of the Arizona Association of Counties, said in March that the measure would pose huge financial and logistical challenges for those counties. At the time, the measure would have taken effect immediately after passage, giving counties little to no time to adjust.

The version of the measure that ultimately passed, however, is not effective until 2028 and includes a provision requiring the state to fund new equipment and other costs associated with its implementation.

Marson did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.

The legislation would also prohibit noncitizens from contributing money to influence state elections and prohibit any candidates from knowingly accepting such contributions. Additionally, it contains a provision asserting that the state’s elections “shall be decided solely by the votes of eligible citizen voters.”

Some other provisions of the measure are already in state and federal law, including that only U.S. citizens are eligible to register to vote. Still, Republicans said on the floor that the legislation addressed many concerns their constituents have about the integrity of the state’s elections, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud or a rigged vote.

“These reforms are necessary,” Rep. Neal Carter, a Republican from San Tan Valley, said on Friday. “They really are.”

But Democrats in both chambers viewed it differently. On Friday, they repeatedly described it as an attack on mail voting, which is wildly popular in Arizona.

“The intention of this is to eliminate early voting,” said Sen. Analise Ortiz, a Democrat from Phoenix. “We shouldn’t be tiptoeing around the impact of this, because what it means is that senior citizens, rural voters, tribal voters, people with disabilities, people who work multiple jobs and can’t wait in long lines, are going to lose their access to vote by mail. That is shameful.”

Voting-rights advocates propose counterinitiative

The measure may not be the only voting-related question on the November ballot.

A group called Protect the Vote Arizona is collecting signatures to qualify a different ballot initiative that would counteract the Republican-supported one.

That measure, the Free, Fair and Secure Elections Act, would enshrine a fundamental right to vote in person at countywide polling places or by early ballot in the state constitution.

It would further prescribe that voters who sign up to get a ballot by mail keep getting one until they move, die, or opt out — canceling out a state law scheduled to take effect next year that would remove voters from the early voting list if they haven’t voted using a mail ballot in more than two years. And it would codify the state’s current rules around voter ID in the state constitution to prevent new mandates from being placed on mail voters.

In Arizona, if two measures with conflicting provisions both pass, whichever one receives more votes takes effect.

It’s unclear exactly who is funding the group behind the initiative. Protect the Vote Arizona’s officers have a history of working with left-leaning politicians and causes. But Stacy Pearson of Lumen Strategies, which is helping manage the campaign, said the effort was “grassroots.”

“We didn’t start with big funders telling us what to do,” Pearson said. “We started with, there’s an opportunity here in Arizona to protect what works.”

The organization had not received any donations as of March 31, according to a campaign finance report. It will file its next report on July 15.

Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org.

Special prosecutor investigating latest election-control disagreement in Maricopa County

2026-06-09T19:37:32+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

With mere weeks until voting begins in a high-stakes primary election, a long-standing disagreement over election control in Maricopa County is only getting more combative.

In a new twist of the feud, a special prosecutor is looking into whether employees in the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office broke the law by allegedly removing a scanner and provisional ballot envelopes from the county’s vote tabulation headquarters amid a local election earlier this year.

Recorder Justin Heap, a Republican, said in a recent legal filing that he wanted possession of the scanner, which he said belongs to his office — a claim that the county’s mostly-GOP board of supervisors disputed.

He also requested a court order barring any criminal prosecution of his employees related to the incident, which occurred as votes were being tallied in the March 10 election for three seats on the Tempe City Council.

Heap’s latest filing in his lawsuit with the board of supervisors raises further questions about top officials’ ability to work together to administer this year’s midterm election in the key swing county. It comes less than two months before the state primary on July 21 — and as the special prosecutor looking into the scanner incident draws close to completing his investigation.

Former Pinal County Attorney Kent Volkmer, a Republican, told Votebeat that he was tapped by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office to investigate the matter in April. He said he’d hired an off-duty, reserve deputy with the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office to assist with the case, and that the investigation was “wrapping up.”

Erin Pellett, a spokesperson for Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell, said in a statement that Mitchell had appointed special counsel after receiving an “allegation” and determining a conflict of interest was present. As the county’s top prosecutor, Mitchell, a Republican, represents both the recorder’s office and the board of supervisors.

Volkmer declined to share many details of the investigation, noting that it still remained active. But he said the investigation wasn’t initiated to target specific employees in the recorder’s office. Rather, Volkmer said he was looking into the incident to determine “whether there was, in fact, criminal behavior.”

“This wasn’t, ‘Hey, go look at this person,’” he said. “That’s not how this came about.”

Volkmer added that it is standard practice for investigators to attempt to contact individuals who could have knowledge of a potential criminal matter.

“I would say you’re not doing your job if you don’t try,” he said, adding that he believed his investigator would be “thorough” in examining the incident.

What happened with Maricopa County Recorder’s Office employees and the disputed scanner?

Heap said in his court motion that multiple employees from the recorder’s office had attempted to “retrieve” a scanner from the election center in March, with the intent of repurposing it to scan inbound provisional ballot envelopes.

He said the scanner belonged to his office. Heap noted it was purchased with funds from the recorder’s office and was never “lawfully transferred” to the county elections department, which is overseen by the board of supervisors. He added that the scanners were acquired specifically for early voting services, “a function under the sole authority of the recorder.”

But the board saw it differently. In a statement, Supervisors Kate Brophy McGee and Debbie Lesko said two workers — including Chief Information Officer Brian Colby, who is named in court filings as one of the employees who was later approached by an investigator — were caught on security cameras loading the piece of equipment into the back of an unmarked pickup truck on March 12. The supervisors said it appeared to be a personal vehicle.

The supervisors called the machine a “pre-tabulation” scanner and said it was controlled by the board. Furthermore, they said Colby had been notified on “at least one occasion, in an inter-office message on March 5,” that the scanner was the property of the board.

Brophy McGee and Lesko, both Republicans, said the workers returned the scanner about an hour later, after elections department staff contacted the recorder’s office about the matter.

But they said Colby also appeared to take envelopes that potentially contained live provisional ballots, creating “grave chain-of-custody concerns.” They added that a count the following day confirmed that all ballots were accounted for, and that a human resources investigation substantiated their accounting of the incident.

Later, Heap said his employees were approached at their homes by “Pinal County Sheriff’s deputies.” He said Colby was specifically told he was under investigation for theft.

Filing comes as Maricopa County elections dispute continues to escalate

The filing adds fuel to the flames of a long-running feud within county government.

Heap has long contended that county supervisors usurped much of his power in a deal they struck with his predecessor months before he took office. He sued over the matter last year — and after months of back-and-forth in court, a court ruled largely in his favor on April 16, ordering the board to return control of several election-related functions and information technology staffers to Heap’s office.

The board unsuccessfully moved to stay that ruling, arguing it was too close to the primary to implement the court’s directives without risking a tumultuous election. Later, they filed for an appeal, which is still pending.

In the meantime, the officials have continued to butt heads.

During a May 19 local election, they argued over how to communicate a new voting option at polling sites. Emails show the recorder’s office and the board’s elections department disagreed over whether poll workers should verbally inform voters that they could opt to show identification at voting sites to have their mailed ballot counted faster.

Then, another scuffle erupted last month over ballot drop box locations for the upcoming primary. The board has set such sites for years under a provision of the state’s election rulebook, and it planned to approve the locations at a May 20 meeting. But just before the supervisors met to do so, Heap sent a letter to the board citing state statutes that he said granted his office authority over ballot drop boxes. He also warned that election workers who handle ballots deposited in “unauthorized” receptacles could face criminal penalties.

The suggestion that election workers could be charged with felonies drew strong condemnation from the supervisors. One, Democratic Supervisor Steve Gallardo, accused Heap of attempting to sabotage election operations. Ultimately, the board unanimously approved a slate of voting locations — including the drop box sites — for the primary.

Later, Heap asked a judge to hold the county board in civil contempt of court, accusing supervisors of flouting the April ruling. If supervisors failed to quickly adhere to the recent decision, he asked that the court levy substantial fines and give the money to his office.

Heap reiterated that request in his most recent filing, asking the court to set an expedited hearing on the issue in light of “these new factual developments.”

He also said the board was targeting his employees and doing “exactly what it had falsely accused the recorder of doing” amid the drop box saga last month.

“It has actively initiated a criminal referral against a Recorder’s Office staff member for doing something entirely lawful, in the middle of active litigation, just over two weeks before early ballots are scheduled to be mailed to voters,” Heap wrote in the filing.

Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org.

Judge dismisses federal government’s lawsuit over Wisconsin voter records

2026-05-21T20:11:12+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

A federal judge on Thursday rejected the U.S. Justice Department’s demand for Wisconsin’s unredacted voter list, the latest defeat for President Donald Trump’s administration in its quest to obtain more information about voters around the country.

In his 10-page ruling, U.S. District Judge James D. Peterson said the department’s allegation that the Wisconsin Elections Commission violated the Civil Rights Act by not turning over the state’s voter roll “fails as a matter of law.”

The Department of Justice has requested voter rolls with unredacted information — including voters’ full birthdates, full or partial Social Security numbers, and driver’s license information — from at least 48 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. At least 15 states have provided or said they will provide the data, but most have not, prompting the department to file suit against 30 states plus Washington, D.C.

Federal judges have so far dismissed those lawsuits in seven other states, including Michigan, Oregon, California, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Arizona. The Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Maine was also dismissed on Thursday.

The department has so far appealed three of those dismissals, the ones in Michigan, Oregon, and California.

The Justice Department has said it is entitled to the voter rolls under federal law and needs the data to enforce requirements in federal statutes. Officials in both Republican- and Democratic-led states have pushed back on the Justice Department’s request for unredacted voter data, saying it could put voters at risk. They also say the department hasn’t provided enough information on how the data would be used.

The federal government requested Wisconsin’s unredacted voter rolls late last year, and the Wisconsin Elections Commission argued that state law explicitly bans election officials from disclosing information like driver’s license numbers to most people who aren’t election officials. That led to the lawsuit.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“This ruling protects against federal intrusions into Wisconsin’s election system,” said ACLU of Wisconsin legal director Ryan Cox, adding that it “ensures private voter data is safe from abuse, and prevents the Trump administration from playing politics with our right to vote.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Tina Peters’ commutation has left election officials feeling betrayed

2026-05-19T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

When Colorado Gov. Jared Polis first signaled that he was considering clemency or a commutation for Tina Peters, a former county clerk who was convicted for helping to breach her county’s election systems in an effort to uncover fraud in the 2020 election, election officials urged him against it.

Pam Anderson, another former county clerk who defeated Peters in the 2022 Republican primary for secretary of state, in January accused Polis of “enabl[ing] violent, lying, bullying criminals” by considering clemency. Caleb Thornton, a lawyer for the Colorado secretary of state’s office who testified at Peters’ trial, wrote in February that the possibility of a commutation was “a slap in the face to all election officials around the country.”

Their pleas didn’t work. On Friday, Polis, a Democrat, said he would commute Peters’ sentence; she is expected to be freed on parole June 1. In a commutation letter and press interviews, Polis said he believed her sentence of nearly nine years in prison was too harsh for a first-time nonviolent offender, and that the severity of her sentence was based in part on what he said was her incorrect belief in conspiracy theories about election fraud — not solely her illegal actions.

Now, many Colorado election officials who have spent years working to convince the public that they run free and fair elections feel betrayed by the governor’s decision and don’t believe Peters has shown enough remorse to merit relief.

“We needed the governor to hold the line, and he let us down,” said Lori Mitchell, the clerk and recorder in Chaffee County. “We protected everything, and basically he’s saying the one woman who betrayed that trust for the public — she deserved to go home early. It’s just hard to even explain to my staff.”

In a social media post Friday, Peters said she had “made mistakes,” and “going forward I will make sure that my actions always follow the law.”

Polis’ decision came as election officials remain under pressure, preparing for what promises to be fraught midterm elections this year. President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly advocated for Peters’ freedom, continues to suggest elections are rigged. His administration is again investigating previously debunked allegations about the 2020 election, and some activists who supported his claims in 2020 now hold official positions in the federal government.

Mitchell, a Democrat who is not running for reelection as clerk, said that she believes Polis gave in to Trump’s campaign to free Peters. She predicted that those who promote conspiracy theories about elections and consider Peters a martyr will see this as a victory. “She is going to be on the pedestal, and I think that’s really bad for elections in this country,” she said.

Election officials feel abandoned

In 2024, a jury convicted Peters of multiple charges in connection with a 2021 breach of her county’s election equipment that forced the county to eventually replace it. Her case became a cause celebre among those who believe the 2020 election was rigged, and Trump even issued her a federal pardon, though it had no legal effect (she was convicted of state crimes, not federal ones). Colorado officials and others linked Trump’s campaign for her freedom to his administration’s withholding of unrelated federal funds from Colorado.

A Colorado appeals court in April upheld Peters’ conviction but threw out her sentence, finding the trial court judge’s criticism of her beliefs during the sentencing went too far. The panel ordered her resentenced but did not free her from prison. The court had not yet resentenced her.

Election officials have for months warily parsed Polis’ signals that he was considering taking action in the Peters case and didn’t hold back once they learned of it.

“A clear message is being sent to those willing to break the law and attack our democracy for the president that they very likely will not face consequences for their actions,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said in a press call shortly after the news broke Friday.

During the same call, Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado Clerks Association, said the group was “furious, disgusted, and deeply disappointed” by Polis’ decision.

Later that day, in an interview with Votebeat, Crane said that “election officials just feel very alone right now.”

Jessica Huseman contributed reporting.

Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.

What Americans think about election policy and how the 2026 elections will go

2026-05-18T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Earlier this year, we asked a group of election experts about what worries they had about the administration of the 2026 midterms. Now, let’s check in on how the American people are feeling.

Several polls in recent months have asked about people’s confidence in the election, the likelihood of voter fraud, and how — if at all — election laws should be changed. Their responses defy easy categorization: Many are concerned about fraud and support efforts to weed it out, but they’re also worried about voter disenfranchisement and oppose federal intervention in elections.

Polls: Many Americans are concerned about voter fraud

With President Donald Trump continuing to spread fear about widespread voter fraud in the midterms — despite his claims about past elections being repeatedly debunked — about half of Americans say they have concerns along these lines. According to an Ipsos/Reuters poll conducted April 15-20, 46% of American adults agreed with the statement that noncitizens cast a large number of fraudulent ballots in U.S. elections, and 50% were very or somewhat concerned about ineligible voters casting a ballot in the midterms.

Trump’s invections against mail voting have also trickled down to the general public: The same survey found that 53% of adults were concerned about fraudulent mail-in or absentee ballots in the midterms.

More generally, a Marist University/NPR/PBS News poll conducted March 2-4 found that 50% of adults thought it was likely that there would be voter fraud in the November elections. By contrast, none of the experts in Votebeat’s informal survey thought it was likely that a significant number of ineligible voters would cast ballots in 2026. Studies have repeatedly shown that noncitizen voting and voter fraud by mail are exceedingly rare.

It’s important to look at polls in the aggregate, and not every survey agrees that such a large percentage of Americans have been convinced by Trump’s claims. In a YouGov/CBS News poll conducted March 16-19, only 23% of adults said they thought noncitizens vote “a lot” in federal elections, although an additional 27% said they do so “sometimes.” And just 32% thought voter fraud and irregularities were generally widespread in U.S. elections; 57% thought they occurred only in a few isolated incidents, and only 11% said there was no voter fraud or irregularities whatsoever.

Still, 38% of YouGov/CBS News’ respondents thought “a lot” of fraud takes place when ballots are cast by mail, compared to just 13% who said the same of ballots cast in person, and 42% said ineligible voters casting ballots was a “major problem” — not quite half, but a meaningful minority.

Unsurprisingly, the slice of the populace that is most likely to fret about fraud is Republicans. For example, 54% of Republicans thought there were widespread fraud and irregularities in U.S. elections versus just 14% of Democrats and 28% of independents. And 69% of Republicans said that ineligible voters were a major problem, compared with 20% of Democrats and 39% of independents.

Americans are also worried about voter access, federal troops, and attempts to overturn election results

Fraud isn’t the only concern that Americans have about elections, though. In fact, all three polls found that more people are worried about disenfranchisement than fraud. In the Ipsos/Reuters poll, 57% said they were very or somewhat concerned about eligible voters being prevented from voting, and 44% of respondents to the YouGov/CBS News poll identified that as a major problem. And according to Marist, 58% of adults think it’s likely that many people will show up to vote in 2026 and be told they’re not eligible.

When it comes to the tradeoff between voting access and security, Americans are slightly more likely to prioritize access. When Marist asked respondents what concerned them more, 59% said “making sure that everyone who wants to vote can do so,” while 41% said “making sure that no one votes who is not eligible.”

That also comes across in Americans’ opposition to stationing federal agents at voting locations. According to Ipsos/Reuters, people disagree with the idea that federal law enforcement should be present at polling places, 55% to 40%, and they disagree with sending National Guard troops there by an even wider margin: 67% to 28%. However, in the Marist poll, only 54% of adults opposed having the National Guard at polling places, while 46% supported it. The difference might be explained by the fact that Marist specified that they would be there “to monitor November’s election” — a reminder that how pollsters word their surveys matters.

What really keeps Americans up at night, though, is what could happen after votes are cast. In the YouGov/CBS News poll, 47% of adults said “votes not being counted properly” is a major problem with U.S. elections, and 55% said “attempts to overturn official election results” are. Similarly, 69% of Ipsos/Reuters’ respondents said they were very or somewhat concerned about attempts to overturn official election results — by far the highest share of any scenario posed to them.

Americans have mixed views of Trump’s election agenda

So people are plenty worried about how the midterms will go — but what, if anything, do they think should be done about it? Well, the polls found that Americans have complicated, even contradictory, views on that.

First — as Trump has boasted many times — Americans strongly support many of Republicans’ plans to tighten election rules. About 80% of adults support requiring voters to show ID, according to both YouGov/CBS News (which asked specifically about photo IDs) and Ipsos/Reuters (which just asked about “official ID”). And per YouGov/CBS News, 66% of adults favor requiring people to show proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Respondents said, 43% to 29%, that such a requirement would do more to prevent illegal voting by noncitizens than to prevent legal voting by citizens (28% said it would do both things equally).

There is, of course, pending federal legislation to implement a proof-of-citizenship requirement, but interestingly, the YouGov/CBS News poll found that people narrowly oppose one of those bills, the SAVE Act, 31% to 28%. However, the important number there is the 41% who weren’t sure where they stood on it — probably a symptom of the fact that many Americans aren’t closely following the debate over the bill in Washington. Indeed, 36% of adults told YouGov/CBS News that they don’t even know what’s in it!

On the other hand, Americans clearly aren’t on board with Trump’s movement to end mail voting. According to YouGov/CBS News, 49% of adults believed that mail voting should be available to all voters who want it, while 39% thought it should only be allowed for voters who can’t vote in person. Only 12% thought it should never be permitted.

The same poll also found Americans are skeptical of the Trump administration’s efforts to get more involved in election administration. Only 41% of respondents thought there should be more federal oversight of elections than there is now. An identical 41% thought the current level of oversight was sufficient, and 18% thought there should be even less than there is now.

Similarly, when YouGov/CBS News asked who should have the final say in how states administer their elections, only 29% said the federal government. A whopping 71% said it should be up to the individual states.

Americans trust local election officials

The public’s preference for local election administration reflects a broader truth: For all their anxieties on a national level, Americans still largely feel good about how the midterms will be run in their neck of the woods.

In the Marist poll, 66% of adults said they were confident that their state or local government would run a fair and accurate election this November, although that was slightly lower than the share who thought that ahead of the 2020, 2022, or 2024 elections. And per YouGov/CBS News, 35% of adults have “a lot” of confidence in their local election administrators, 39% have “some,” and only 26% have “not much” or “none at all.”

Finally, about 70% of respondents to the YouGov/CBS News and Ipsos/Reuters polls said they were confident that their own vote would be counted correctly. And Marist found that 63% had either “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence that ballots cast in the election would be counted accurately.

Notably, these questions were the only ones in this article without a significant partisan split: For example, 68% of Democrats had confidence that 2026 ballots would be counted accurately, and 67% of Republicans did.

Overall, Americans’ views on election administration can seem to be all over the map. They’re worried about elections getting overturned, but also think vote-counting will be accurate. They take fraud seriously and support election-security measures, but they’re concerned that voters will be disenfranchised.

It doesn’t necessarily make for a cohesive narrative, but it’s possible to reconcile all the data above: It’s not unreasonable to want both fraud-free elections and full voter access; to support federal laws but feel they should be implemented on the state level; and to worry about worst-case scenarios but acknowledge they are unlikely to happen. The partisan debates over voting that we’ve all grown accustomed to don’t leave a lot of room for nuance, but arguments made by politicians and activists are often merely archetypes; Americans’ actual beliefs are considerably more complex.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling on cast vote records creates uncertainty for counties

2026-05-11T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

In a rare unanimous decision last month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that the public should have access to super-granular election results data, making it easier for researchers to analyze electoral patterns and for those concerned about voter fraud to inspect the results.

But it’s unclear how many counties will be able to release the data due to unanswered technological questions and concern about keeping ballots secret in some jurisdictions.

The data, known as a cast vote record or CVR, is essentially a log of each ballot cast in an election and what candidates it voted for. It does not reveal the names of the voters who cast those ballots (election officials don’t even keep that data), but it does include the precinct where the vote was cast.

“Disclosure of CVRs allows the public to ‘check the math’ of [Lycoming County] Voter Services to ensure the number of reported votes match the number of recorded votes,” Justice Daniel McCaffery wrote for the majority. “Such disclosure promotes fair, honest, and transparent elections, which strikes to the heart of ‘trust but verify.’”

In October 2021, conservative activist Heather Honey, who is now the Trump administration’s deputy assistant secretary of homeland security for election integrity, requested Lycoming County’s cast vote record for the 2020 election. The county initially denied her request — a decision upheld by the state’s Office of Open Records. But a local court overturned that ruling, only to be overturned itself by the state’s Commonwealth Court, a decision that was then overturned by the state Supreme Court in late April.

Court case hinged on technology, ballot secrecy

The disagreement in the case stemmed from whether a cast vote record counts as the “contents of ballot boxes and voting machines,” which are exempt from disclosure under state law.

While the Commonwealth Court ruled that cast vote records, and the ballot tabulation machines that create them, are the equivalent of physical ballots in ballot boxes and voting machines, the Supreme Court disagreed.

“CVRs are spreadsheets of raw data pulled from the cast ballots. They are not the physical ballots contained in the ballot box,” McCaffery wrote. “Here, Lycoming County’s scanners constitute voting devices but not voting machines. Similarly, Lycoming County’s tabulators (which no party disputes are responsible for generating the CVRs) are automatic tabulating equipment.”

The justices faulted the legislature for the confusion, noting the state’s election code was written in 1937, long before spreadsheets or electronic voting equipment were ever envisioned.

“Citizens should be entitled to expect their legislators to address and account for advances in voting technologies more frequently than on a centennial basis,” Justice David Wecht wrote in a concurring opinion.

The other issue the case dealt with is ballot secrecy.

Under Pennsylvania law, voters are entitled to have their votes kept secret. Lycoming County expressed concern that, if a cast vote record is made public, it could be analyzed in conjunction with other public documents to identify how specific people voted.

To prevent this, Lycoming County’s equipment randomizes the order of the ballot data in the cast vote record, so that the order of the ballots in the spreadsheet is not the same as the order in which they were cast.

The technique is not foolproof. Individual voters’ choices could still be divulged if, say, everyone in a precinct votes the same way in a given race. But the court pointed out that uncommon scenarios like that already jeopardize ballot secrecy even in the absence of cast vote records. The court argued that voters’ right to a secret ballot needed to be balanced with the public’s right to transparent data.

How the cast vote record decision will affect Pennsylvania counties

The decision means Lycoming County will now have to release its cast vote record.

“The court has made its decision that the CVR is a public record and anyone who requests it, we will provide it,” Lycoming County Elections Director Forrest Lehman said.

It’s unclear, however, how many other counties will have to release cast vote records as a result of the ruling. That’s because the randomization process that protects secrecy in Lycoming County is specific to tabulation machines manufactured by the company Clear Ballot, which is used by only seven other counties in the state.

“We acknowledge Voter Service’s concern that not all counties may follow the same randomization procedures that are established on this record,” McCaffery wrote. “We recognize that, under certain circumstances, it is possible that a county’s method of generating CVRs may violate the secrecy mandate. But that is a question to be addressed on a case-by-case basis.”

A Votebeat and Spotlight PA review of the voting equipment used by Pennsylvania’s other 59 counties found that most are capable of randomizing the data in cast vote records, but some may not be. The most recent software certifications for the equipment used throughout the state don’t mention randomization, and the Department of State did not answer a question about whether all of the state’s vendors randomize their data.

It’s also unclear whether the specific randomization processes used by machines other than Clear Ballot’s would pass the court’s test.

“The Pennsylvania Department of State is reviewing the court’s decision and is working with our county partners to provide appropriate guidance,” a spokesperson for the department said in a statement.

Most Pennsylvania counties, including Philadelphia and Allegheny, use tabulation machines manufactured by Election Systems & Software. A spokesperson for ES&S told Votebeat and Spotlight PA that the CVR data is randomized twice, eliminating any connection to the voter.

At least two less commonly used companies are also capable of randomization. Margia Hansen, the Warren County election director, said Liberty Vote, which serves Warren and 11 other counties, told her that their equipment does randomize the data.

And Jim Allen, the Delaware County election director, said his county’s Hart equipment — which is used by three other counties — generates randomized cast vote records as well. He plans to make Delaware County’s cast vote records available once he gets official guidance from the Department of State.

Allen applauded the Supreme Court’s decision as a win for transparency.

“I think it’s an excellent ruling in terms of setting the record straight and in terms of transparency and giving voters one more way of verifying election results,” he said. “As long as we can randomize them sufficiently to make it impossible to associate a ballot with one individual, this is stuff we should get out there.”

Allen, as well as the court’s opinion, noted that some places, such as counties in Colorado and Wisconsin, have been releasing cast vote records for years.

Some election officials still have privacy concerns about cast vote records

However, some smaller counties might not even have cast vote records to provide. Matthew Repasky, the Columbia County elections director, said his county opted not to buy additional software that would generate cast vote records for its Unisyn equipment because they didn’t feel it was a worthwhile expense.

He also worried that there was no way to protect the secrecy of voters in especially small jurisdictions, such as Centralia, which has only four voters.

“How do you randomize that?” he asked.

Even in more populous precincts, an election with low turnout, like a primary, could make it easier to identify voters. As a result, election directors may not release the cast vote records for precincts with low turnout so as to not violate secrecy requirements.

“You’re not going to be able to give those out, and people are going to be angry,” Repasky said.

Sean Drasher, the Lebanon County elections director, also raised the possibility that a person could theoretically bribe or threaten someone else to vote a certain way, and then use the cast vote record to confirm they voted that way.

The cast vote record might also contain information other than votes, he said, such as machine-testing records that could look confusing to viewers if they’re presented without explanation — or even images of ballots, which could raise new legal questions about being “contents of ballot boxes.”

“When these decisions come down, you have to be really careful to look at every word in every paragraph to see what is the fallout,” Drasher said, adding that he will be consulting closely with the Department of State and his county attorney before releasing any cast vote records.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Wayne County tells Department of Justice it doesn’t have requested ballots

2026-05-05T21:59:59+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Wayne County has responded to the U.S. Department of Justice’s demand for records from the 2024 election by explaining that the county does not have the ballots, receipts, and envelopes the DOJ is looking for.

But local clerks expect this will not be the end of the Trump administration’s interest in the strongly Democratic county.

In a letter dated April 27, Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett wrote to Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon that the county “is not the legal custodian of any records responsive to your request.”

In Michigan, it is municipal clerks who do most of the work of administering elections. Thus, Garrett explained, election records such as ballots are maintained by cities and townships, not the county. Garrett also wrote that Michigan law doesn’t give the county any power to compel municipal clerks to hand over the records.

“Accordingly, any further inquiries regarding ballot materials should be directed to the city and township clerks of the records you seek,” Garrett wrote.

The DOJ doesn’t appear to have contacted any cities or townships as of yet. Michael Siegrist, the clerk of Canton Township and president of the Association of Wayne County Clerks, told Votebeat on Tuesday that he was unaware of any Wayne County municipality receiving a request for their 2024 ballots.

He has had conversations with other communities, though, about what the response will be if the request does come.

“At this point, we’re preparing for the 2026 election,” he said. “The legitimate requests we get, we’re going to honor, with regards to what our legal duty is under federal and state law.”

The Association of Wayne County Clerks, which represents the county’s 43 city and township clerks, also put out a statement on Tuesday criticizing the DOJ’s county-level inquiry and defending Michigan’s election system.

The DOJ’s letter to Wayne County “reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how elections are administered in Michigan,” the statement said. “Effective oversight or inquiry begins with an accurate understanding of that structure.”

The DOJ’s letter to Wayne County is just one example of the Trump administration taking an unusual interest in past elections in key swing states. In January, the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, a major Democratic stronghold where the DOJ also recently demanded the names of all poll workers from the 2020 election. In March, the FBI subpoenaed records from a partisan review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona.

It’s not clear what the administration’s next move in Michigan will be. The DOJ has not responded to multiple requests for comment from Votebeat, but on April 23 — before Wayne County’s response — Dhillon went on Newsmax and said officials “intend to get these records.”

President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly named Detroit as one of the places whose election conduct he is most suspicious of.

In its original letter to Wayne County, the DOJ cited three cases from 2020 in which Wayne County voters were accused of fraud. It also cited a 2020 lawsuit that accused the county and the city of Detroit of allowing election workers to commit fraud. That suit was quickly dismissed, with a judge writing that the “plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.”

Garrett wrote that she hoped the DOJ’s action against the three alleged fraudsters “deters others from such actions in the future” but pointed out that the allegations against Wayne County from the 2020 suit were not the job of the county clerk.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Pennsylvania auditor general says Motor Voter system works, but improvements needed

2026-04-20T18:25:53+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

Update, April 20, 2:25 p.m.: This story has been updated with more information about the noncitizen’s registration status.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania’s Motor Voter system “works as intended,” but needs some improvements to avoid human error, an audit released Friday by the state’s auditor general found. The Motor Voter system is a program established by federal law that allows potential voters to register when acquiring a driver’s license.

Over nearly two years, the Pennsylvania Auditor General queried more than 200,000 voter applications from PennDOT and flagged 58 as potentially belonging to noncitizens. A closer examination found just one was an actual noncitizen who had been allowed to apply to vote — a result of human error, not the Motor Voter system itself. .

The noncitizen notified PennDOT of the error themself, and it was corrected before they left the PennDOT facility, PennDOT said. The person is not registered to vote.

DeFoor said the issue was a result of “human error” in which a PennDOT employee left blank the field that would have flagged the individual as a noncitizen, allowing them to fill out a voter registration application. DeFoor said after the noncitizen was identified by the audit, PennDOT notified the Department of State about the error.

“Pennsylvanians need to know that the Motor Voter process works, but the internal controls and security protocols around it must improve,” DeFoor said in a statement.

DeFoor recommended changes to strengthen the Motor Voter process, including allowing PennDOT to void applications when errors occur, and recommending that PennDOT follow up with the Pennsylvania Department of State to ensure the one noncitizen was not registered to vote.

A spokesperson for PennDOT said the one noncitizen identified by the audit represented a 0.0% error rate.

“The error was immediately addressed, and the driver record was corrected before the customer even left the center,” Alexis Campbell, press secretary for PennDOT, said. “Ultimately, the audit confirms that PennDOT was and remains in compliance with both state and federal elections regulations.”

Campbell said the individual “is not” registered to vote in Pennsylvania, but referred a question on if they had been at some point to the Department of State. A spokesperson for the department confirmed the individual had been registered, but when PennDOT contacted the department when the discovery was made during the audit, it worked with county officials to ensure they were removed. The department said the noncitizen did not actually vote in any elections.

Another 57 voter registration applications were initially flagged as needing further review of the applicants’ citizenship status, but those were all determined to be from actual citizens and were flagged because of a mistake in the way PennDOT initially searched its records for the audit.

DeFoor stressed that the audit, which he said was requested by state legislators, was not intended to serve as an examination of the state’s voter roll system or a specific search for noncitizen voting. Instead, it served as a limited examination of the mechanics of the Motor Voter system, including how the system ensures noncitizens do not apply to register.

The audit follows concerns expressed by Republicans after Gov. Josh Shapiro in 2023 switched the state’s Motor Voter program from an opt-in model — where prospective voters obtaining a new driver’s license or ID card must affirmatively choose to register to vote — to an opt-out model where voters would automatically fill out an application unless they requested not to.

Those registration applications then go to counties for final approval.

Some Republicans expressed concern at the time that the switch could mistakenly register ineligible voters, since legally present noncitizens are eligible for driver’s licenses in Pennsylvania. They cited a previous issue with the program, revealed in 2017, in which a glitch in the system allowed noncitizens to register.

After the error was revealed, state officials said it was fixed by changing PennDOTs system to allow noncitizens to be specifically flagged by PennDOT staff. Those noncitizens would then be prevented from accessing the voter registration pages within the system.

In September 2024, DeFoor, a Republican, announced he was going to audit the program, a move the conservative Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus applauded and said it had requested. DeFoor’s audit covered a six month period between Jan. 1 and June 30, 2024.

DeFoor was also running for reelection at the time, and PennDOT Secretary Michael Carroll accused DeFoor of “politicizing his office” by “furthering the disproven myth that non-citizens are registering or voting,” but said that PennDOT would comply.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

New voting requirements? Troops at the polls? We asked 37 election experts what could disrupt the 2026 elections.

2026-04-17T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

There are always unanswered questions heading into any election. But usually those questions are more along the lines of “who’s going to win?” and less “will the federal government interfere with the election?”

But here in 2026, President Donald Trump’s broadsides against the legitimacy of U.S. elections and efforts to overhaul election laws have generated lots of uncertainty — and anxiety — about whether this will be a normal election year. Election officials and voters alike are left to wonder whether there will be new requirements for voters, physical interventions at the polls, or attempts to overturn results after the fact.

Despite seemingly endless speculation, no one knows for sure how likely any of these things is. But to get the most well-informed assessments, we turned to the people who spend the most time thinking about elections.

We asked 37 experts in the field of election administration — academics, lawyers, former election officials, etc. — to answer 26 questions about the likelihood of various scenarios coming to pass in the 2026 midterms.

Their answers reflect a general sense of cautious optimism about the most dire scenarios — such as an election getting overturned — and skepticism that the federal government will successfully change voting rules. But they also still believe the election will face serious challenges, including federal agents potentially showing up at polling places.

Election experts say new federal laws are unlikely, but split on state laws and court intervention

Since retaking office in 2025, Trump has pushed aggressively for the federal government to set more rules around how elections are run, promoting legislation that would require registering voters to prove their citizenship with documentation and issuing two election-related executive orders. (The first executive order has largely been blocked in court, though the administration has appealed. The second is currently under litigation, and the conventional wisdom is that it will be halted as well.)

However, experts were skeptical that these measures would ever take effect. Thirty-four of our 37 respondents said it was unlikely that the federal government would successfully require new registrants to prove their citizenship for the midterms, and 32 said it was unlikely that the federal government would successfully require all voters to show an ID or restrict the use of no-excuse absentee or mail ballots. (They provided their answers before Trump issued his second executive order, which sought to regulate mail voting through the U.S. Postal Service.)

Likewise, virtually all respondents thought it was unlikely that the federal government would restrict the hours or locations of in-person voting or limit or eliminate the use of voting machines to tally ballots in the midterms.

However, experts were more open to the possibility that some of these policies could take effect in individual states. Although none thought it was likely that a significant number of states would limit or eliminate the use of voting machines, about a quarter of respondents thought it was at least somewhat likely that a significant number of states would restrict the use of no-excuse absentee or mail ballots in the midterms. About one-third thought it was at least somewhat likely that a significant number of states would strengthen their voter ID requirements or restrict the hours or locations of in-person voting.

Even more respondents, 15 of the 37, thought it was at least somewhat likely that a significant number of states would pass proof-of-citizenship requirements before the election — perhaps unsurprisingly, given that such laws were working their way through several state legislatures at the time. Those laws have since passed in Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Utah, although Florida’s does not take effect until 2027 and Mississippi’s is limited in scope.

Overall, though, most experts didn’t expect states to significantly change their election laws this year. Derek Muller, an election law professor at the University of Notre Dame, pointed out that many states have part-time legislatures that won’t be in session between now and the election. “I expect new legislation in the months ahead that might affect the 2026 election to be negligible,” Muller said.

If there are going to be major election-law changes before the midterms, experts expect them to come from the third branch of government: the judiciary. Seventeen experts said it was at least somewhat likely that pre-election court rulings would significantly alter election rules shortly before the midterms, although 19 still said that was unlikely.

In follow-up interviews, those who thought this was likely said that they were keeping an eye both on currently pending cases — such as a U.S. Supreme Court case that could require all mail ballots to arrive by Election Day — and those that have not yet been filed. That said, a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year will probably encourage litigants to bring any cases challenging election rules well before the election, making last-minute rule changes less likely.

Experts expect federal agents to disrupt the 2026 election

For many election officials and voting advocates, the nightmare scenario for the 2026 midterms is if federal agents, such as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, attempt to disrupt voting or the counting of ballots. It’s already illegal for armed troops to visit voting locations, and the Trump administration has repeatedly said that it will not send ICE agents to polling places this year. However, new Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin has declined to absolutely rule it out, and a majority of the experts we surveyed expected something like this to happen.

Twenty-seven of the 37 respondents said it was at least somewhat likely that the federal government would deploy some form of military or law enforcement at or near polling places in the midterms. A slight majority said it was likely that Trump would ask the National Guard or federal agents to seize voting equipment during the election, and over three-quarters said it was likely that Trump would ask them to seize voting equipment after the election. (It’s worth noting that respondents gave these answers just a few weeks after the FBI raided an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, and Trump said that he regretted not asking the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election.)

Multiple respondents told Votebeat that the seizure of voting equipment was more likely after the election because the election results will be known at that time. “Before the election, no one will know where seizing equipment or ballots could shift pivotal races,” said Christopher Mann, the research director at the Center for Election Innovation and Research. “After the election, a bad actor will have a better picture of where seizing voting equipment or ballots can shift the overall outcome.”

Twenty-eight experts said it was at least somewhat likely that there would be physical threats to voters or polling places in the midterms, including 11 who said it was very likely. (They were perhaps recalling 2024, when a string of bomb threats forced some polling places to close temporarily, though election officials were able to minimize disruptions to voting.) However, experts were divided on whether these threats would deter people from voting. Twenty-one experts said it was unlikely that a significant number of voters would decide not to vote because of threats or physical intimidation, while 16 said that was likely.

Notably, experts were not very confident about their predictions about armed intervention in the midterms. Some also pointed out that, even if it’s likely that Trump might order federal agents to interfere in the election, that doesn’t mean they will succeed. “Election officials, courts, and other state and local officials are going to stop any attempt to seize voting equipment or ballots,” Mann predicted.

And some experts emphasized that even if there are incidents at specific polling places, they expect the election overall to run smoothly. “I’m an optimist, which probably led to many of my answers,” admitted Jeff Greenburg, a retired election official in Pennsylvania and a senior adviser at the Committee of Seventy, a Philadelphia-based government watchdog group. But Greenburg said he doesn’t expect that physical threats to voting “will significantly impact elections nationwide. I have faith and trust in our election officials, as well as the rule of law, and believe in the end every vote cast will be counted.”

Losers may claim fraud, but it’s unlikely an election gets overturned

Election experts of all stripes are confident that U.S. elections are secure. All 37 respondents said it was unlikely that a significant number of ineligible voters would cast ballots in the midterms, including 35 who said it was not at all likely. Experts also unanimously said that it was unlikely that voter fraud would influence the outcome of a 2026 congressional race.

However, that isn’t expected to stop candidates from questioning the election results. Almost three-quarters of experts thought it was at least somewhat likely that a significant number of losing candidates would claim fraud influenced the outcome of the election. All 37 thought it was likely that at least one congressional or statewide election would be legally challenged, with 30 calling it very likely.

At the same time, though, most experts don’t expect those challenges to succeed. Thirty-one of the 37 respondents thought it was unlikely that any congressional or statewide elections would be successfully overturned.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

A California sheriff seized ballots, testing the limits of local power over elections

2026-04-13T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Over the past few weeks, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — who is also a Republican candidate for governor of California — has taken the unusual step of seizing ballots from a recent election, launching his own recount, and opening a criminal investigation into how the election was run.

“This investigation is simple: Physically count the ballots and compare that result with the total votes reported,” Bianco said during a press conference after he and his deputies seized the ballots last month.

The premise of Bianco’s investigation is sharply disputed. Bianco has pointed to the claims of a conservative citizens’ activist group that says it found an apparent discrepancy of tens of thousands of ballots — a figure election officials and independent experts say stems from a misreading of preliminary vote data, not an actual gap between ballots cast and ballots counted.

California’s attorney general moved to stop the investigation, which is now on pause. Bianco seized more ballots, anyway, and says the effort to stop his recount is “politically motivated.” Courts this week ordered the unsealing of the warrants used to justify the seizures, which showed a yearslong relationship between Bianco’s office and the conservative activist group. On Wednesday, the California Supreme Court also ordered a halt to Bianco’s investigation.

And the ripples may be spreading beyond California. Bianco told USA Today last week that the publicity has prompted law enforcement officials around the country to contact him because they’re interested in conducting similar election investigations.

Local law enforcement has a clearer path to investigate elections

As the president has called for Republicans to “nationalize the voting,” a lot of people right now are worried about the possibility of federal intervention in the midterm elections — in no small part due to the administration’s efforts to seize election materials from across the country. But Blanco’s efforts raise different questions.

Local actions like those in Riverside can move with a speed and force that federal interventions rarely match, and their consequences can cut closer to the machinery of elections itself.

Elections in the U.S. are run locally. So is law enforcement. That overlap creates a real vulnerability. The same county responsible for storing and counting ballots is also overseen by a sheriff who can get a warrant, enter election facilities, and take materials as part of a criminal investigation. In contrast, federal authorities seeking to obtain election materials have to establish jurisdiction and work through multiple layers of oversight. A local sheriff can act much more quickly, often before state officials or courts have time to respond.

Bianco, for example, used a standard criminal process. After opening a fraud investigation, his office got search warrants from a local judge and sent his own deputies to the county registrar to take custody of the ballots, just as they would in seizing evidence for any other criminal case. Within weeks of a complaint, hundreds of thousands of ballots were in law enforcement hands, and the same law enforcement agents began a recount.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said those differences can sometimes cut the other way — as they have, at least in part, in California. There, the attorney general has been able to intervene quickly, ordering Bianco to halt his investigation and filing multiple legal challenges that prompted Bianco to pause the effort while courts sort out whether it was lawful. In California, Levitt said, the attorney general has more authority over local law enforcement than you might find elsewhere.

Still, that’s a different path than federal officials followed when they seized 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, in January. Federal authorities had to build a case, coordinate with prosecutors, and get approval through several layers of Justice Department and judicial review before initiating the seizure. While critics of the Trump administration say review has become a formality, it’s a formality that still takes a lot of time. And while Bianco got right to work on a recount, it’s still unclear exactly what the DOJ intends to do with Fulton County’s ballots.

Joshua Douglas, a professor at the University of Kentucky specializing in election law, said that despite Riverside’s presence in the news, interference by local law enforcement in local election administration remains rare. Even in Northern California’s Shasta County, which has been consumed by fights over election administration for years, the sheriff has remained completely uninvolved.

“In the routine aspect of election administration,” Douglas said, law enforcement would only be involved “after the fact, when there were specific allegations of wrongdoing at the polls” by those qualified to make such assessments. In Riverside, by contrast, Bianco has pointed to disputed claims about vote totals — raised by a citizens group and rejected by election officials — rather than any verified evidence or specific allegation of criminal conduct to justify opening an investigation.Some law enforcement offices have fraud hotlines, which have been popular for decades, but rarely turn up anything. Other times they’ll investigate after specifically being asked to by the elections office or the local district attorney. Typically, Douglas said, that’s “good for confidence in the system — because most often something is investigated because of an accusation, but nothing nefarious actually happened.” The investigation in Riverside, he notes, is proceeding on a fundamentally different track. And while that’s concerning, he doesn’t expect that other law enforcement offices will act in the same way.

The political implications of the investigation are murky

Lots of things make Riverside a special case. Chiefly, Bianco’s candidacy for governor raises an obvious question of self-interest — he may be using the powers of his office to elevate a political issue that he thinks will benefit him as a candidate. He is also stepping into the administration of the same election system he wants to compete in — a personal conflict many have long complained about in relation to secretaries of state who run for office during their tenures.

But the political upside he appeared to be chasing has proven more limited than it first seemed.

Former President Donald Trump, whose backing could have consolidated Republican support behind Bianco, instead endorsed his opponent, Steve Hilton — a move that reshapes the dynamics of the race and undercuts the idea that Bianco’s high-profile investigation translated into political momentum.

Bianco will now have to reckon, in court and in the political arena, with his decision to seize more than half a million ballots, breaking the chain of custody. Sensitive voter data — signatures, addresses, voting records — could be put at risk.

How that plays out now could shape the risk of similar interventions by local law enforcement elsewhere — a potential threat to the safe, free, and fair conduct of elections that experts say is worth as much attention as any other.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Why Pennsylvania’s secretary of the commonwealth has a unique understanding of noncitizen voting

2026-04-09T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

The potential risk of noncitizens illegally casting ballots has dominated the national conversation on election policy in recent years. But one major voice on the issue hasn’t been heard.

Pennsylvania is home to someone who has perhaps more experience addressing noncitizen voting than anyone else, a Republican who uncovered hundreds of noncitizens had registered to vote and cast ballots in Philadelphia: Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt.

“I’ve always heard my whole life, even though I grew up in Western Pennsylvania, about concerns about voter fraud and voting irregularities in Philadelphia elections,” Schmidt told Votebeat and Spotlight PA in a recent interview. “So I wanted to be able to sort out fact from fiction.”

But despite this experience, Schmidt hasn’t embraced the exaggerated claims about the prevalence of noncitizen voting common in today’s political rhetoric. Instead, he feels officials need to strike a balance between election security and voter access.

PennDOT error led to noncitizens registering to vote

When Schmidt came into office as a Philadelphia city commissioner in 2012, he began looking into various claims of voter fraud. Eventually he discovered that an error with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s motor voter system — which helps register voters who are obtaining a driver’s license — was enabling noncitizens to register. (In Pennsylvania, noncitizens are permitted to obtain a driver’s license.)

As Schmidt explained to a state Senate committee in 2017, despite PennDOT having the paperwork confirming the individuals’ noncitizen status, they weren’t prevented from interacting with the voter registration screens when completing the license application process. The programming error that allowed noncitizens to register was fixed in 2017, and state Auditor General Tim DeFoor is currently conducting an audit to assess the system.

Schmidt discovered that this glitch had led to 168 noncitizens registering to vote in Philadelphia alone and he discovered an additional 52 registered by other means. Schmidt found that collectively they cast 227 votes in the years they were registered. But the scope of the problem statewide was potentially much larger.

The glitch that allowed them to register dated back to the mid-1990s, and in 2018, the state sent letters to 11,198 voters across the state asking them to confirm their eligibility, though not necessarily meaning they were noncitizens. At least 1,915 of those voters were later confirmed to be eligible, and another 501 registrations were canceled or had been canceled previously. The state said this week it did not have an exact count of how many noncitizens were registered as a result of the error.

For Schmidt, the incident wasn’t just a bureaucratic or election integrity issue; it also became a personal, human story. Many of the noncitizen voters Schmidt identified were in the process of applying for their citizenship but were at risk of having their applications rejected — or even being deported — because a simple technical glitch allowed them to register to vote when they weren’t legally allowed to. Schmidt went to several immigration court hearings to testify about how these registrations had been the result of the government’s mistake.

Schmidt suggested many of the noncitizens who registered through PennDOT might not have known they were doing anything illegal, since they had already presented the department with paperwork showing they weren’t citizens and were given the option to register anyway. Language barriers or the habit of just clicking through screens to get to the end could have also played a role, he said.

“I want to emphasize it’s an election integrity issue, and it is just a human issue in terms of being decent when it comes to people who want to become new Americans and any of us would be happy to have as our friends or neighbors,” he said.

Schmidt still emphasizes the rarity of noncitizen voting

That episode represents one of the largest instances of illegal noncitizen voting in recent history. But it still represented only a fraction of a percent of Philadelphia’s roughly 800,000 registered voters at the time. And other recent investigations into noncitizen voting have turned up even fewer examples.

A recent audit of Utah’s 2.1 million registered voters found only one noncitizen registered, and they hadn’t actually voted. Michigan discovered only 15 potential noncitizens voting in the 2024 election. An audit of Georgia’s voter rolls in 2024 found only 20 noncitizen registered voters out of the 8.2 million voters registered in the state. Even in Florida, where Republican state leaders have been focused on noncitizen voting, an audit discovered only 198 voters the state deemed “likely” noncitizens.

“One thing that became very clear through that research and all evidence suggests that noncitizens voting in elections in the United States occurs very rarely,” Schmidt said. “It doesn’t mean that it’s not important. Like I said before, every vote is precious, and we want to make sure that we do everything we can to safeguard and strengthen election integrity. But there’s no evidence to suggest that it happens in any widespread way whatsoever.”

Nevertheless, fears about noncitizen voting have risen to the forefront of election policy debates in recent years, in large part due to President Donald Trump.

After losing the 2020 election, he suggested without evidence that his loss was due to immigrants being registered to vote. He made similar claims during the 2024 campaign. Last year, he signed an executive order that sought to mandate proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

The Department of Justice is collecting voter rolls from states and coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security to check if noncitizens are voting, and Republicans in Congress are pushing hard to pass a bill, the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of citizenship when registering to vote — a step some GOP-led states have already taken on their own.

Asked what he thinks when he hears this rhetoric, and specifically when Pennsylvania is brought into the conversation, Schmidt said people should view the instances of confirmed fraud that are brought up as examples of the system working properly.

“It’s important that we, I think, see it not as a vulnerability, but as an aspect of the strength of our system, and that we are safeguarding election integrity,” he said. “When people break the law, whether intentionally or not, they’re held accountable.”

Schmidt noted that seeking to identify and remove noncitizens from voter rolls can inadvertently have harmful effects. In recent years, some states searching for noncitizens have flagged voters for removal who were in fact citizens. A recent ProPublica investigation found that 14% of Denton County, Texas, voters flagged as noncitizens by a Department of Homeland Security database were actually citizens after all.

Schmidt said people need to be able to “walk and chew gum at the same time.” Policymakers and election officials have to balance being vigilant about fraud with not overreacting to the low level at which noncitizen voting occurs.

“It’s important to take it seriously,” Schmidt said. “But at the same time, putting so many resources behind looking into something that there’s really no evidence is occurring in any way that’s widespread or systematic … if not done responsibly, again results in eligible citizens being disenfranchised from that process, and certainly can do more harm than good.”

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Jordan Wilkie of WITF produced the audio version of this story.

As the SAVE America Act stalls in the Senate, Florida passes its own version

2026-03-23T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

A signature piece of voting legislation championed by President Donald Trump may not have much of a future in the U.S. Senate, but in Florida, the future is here.

Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers in Trump’s home state approved a sweeping overhaul of the state’s voter registration system, one that mirrors the core idea behind the federal SAVE America Act: requiring proof of citizenship to get on the rolls. The details differ — the Florida bill, for instance, would not take effect until after the midterms — but the architecture is the same. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law any day now.

In states like Florida, policies like this one that are on the GOP’s wish list can move quickly. Republicans face little meaningful Democratic opposition, and the bill advanced with relatively little resistance — a stark contrast to Washington, where things are far messier.

The U.S. Senate began debate March 17 on the SAVE America Act, the next step in a high-profile fight not just between Republicans and Democrats, but within the GOP itself. Some Republicans want to change Senate filibuster rules to force the bill through. Others, including party leaders, are loath to blow up the way the Senate does business — and say the votes simply aren’t there to do so anyway.

That divide is showing up in quieter ways, too. Some Republican lawmakers have raised concerns about how the proposal could affect absentee and mail voting — exposing a disconnect between the party’s national push and how voting actually works in many GOP-led states.

As of yet, the debate hasn’t gotten very far — it took until Saturday, the fifth day of debate, for the first vote to be held on any motions or amendments to the bill. That amendment, to bar transgender athletes from playing women’s sports, failed to receive the necessary 60 votes. The bill itself remains under consideration, but its ultimate fate appears sealed.

Meanwhile, in Florida, lawmakers aren’t waiting on Washington. They’re largely in lockstep, drawing on lessons from other states’ past attempts to require proof of citizenship and focusing on how to build a version of the policy that can withstand legal challenges.

Arizona didn’t have that roadmap. When voters there approved a ballot measure in 2004 that required registering voters to prove their citizenship, the state moved to reject people who used the federal voter registration form without providing their documents, triggering a legal challenge. In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Arizona had to accept the federal form, which requires only an oath of citizenship — at least for federal elections.

But Arizona kept its proof-of-citizenship requirement for state elections, resulting in a split system. Voters who have provided citizenship documentation can cast ballots in all races; others can vote only in federal contests, a system that has proven messy for both administrators and voters.

Florida is trying to avoid that outcome. Instead of rejecting applicants outright, Florida’s proposal would build a verification layer behind the scenes, cross-checking new registrants against driver’s license records and other databases to confirm citizenship.

Voters who can’t be verified aren’t necessarily denied registration, but they can be flagged and required to take extra steps — casting a provisional ballot or providing documents later. On paper, the state is still accepting the federal form. In practice, eligibility may hinge on whether the state can independently confirm your citizenship. If the law is challenged — and it likely will be — courts will have to decide whether that distinction holds.

A ruling against Florida could push the state toward the same outcome as Arizona, where some voters are effectively eligible only for federal races. But if the approach is upheld, it could offer a blueprint for other states to require proof of citizenship without directly violating federal law.

Lawmakers in several other Republican-led states are moving quickly on similar proposals. South Dakota and Utah have advanced their own proof-of-citizenship policies, while similar measures are moving through the legislative process in Mississippi and Iowa.

As the federal SAVE America Act would, these state-level proof-of-citizenship requirements would create significant hurdles for people looking to register to vote; millions of American citizens lack ready access to proof of citizenship. But it’s not at all clear Republicans would benefit from this policy push. Some categories of voters who might have the hardest time producing documentation that proves their citizenship overlap heavily with the GOP base.

Even conservative analysts and Republican officials have acknowledged the risk: stricter documentation rules could hit rural and older voters especially hard, forcing them to navigate new bureaucratic hurdles or risk having their ballots rejected.

But Trump, for his part, has shown little interest in the specifics.

He has said he won’t sign any more major legislation unless it includes the SAVE America Act — a position that doesn’t reflect the basic math of the Senate, where the votes to pass it simply are not there. He also said he won’t endorse lawmakers who vote against the bill.

Whether that’s a negotiating tactic or a genuine red line is still unclear, but it’s already threatening to snarl legislation far beyond election policy. A bipartisan housing bill aimed at addressing affordability is now at risk, despite drawing broad support, as lawmakers weigh whether anything can move without triggering a veto threat.

And on social media, Trump has continued to frame the issue in stark — and often misleading — terms, insisting that widespread noncitizen voting is a major threat to U.S. elections.

“America’s Elections are Rigged, Stolen, and a Laughingstock all over the World,” he wrote on Truth Social in early March, encouraging Republicans to “fight” for the SAVE America Act. “We are either going to fix them, or we won’t have a Country any longer.”

It’s a narrative lawmakers in states like Florida are already writing into law — whether Congress ever acts on it or not.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

One of Michigan’s most populous counties will post all ballots online

2026-03-06T15:51:31+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Macomb County has begun to post online an image of every ballot cast in the pivotal swing county.

The county, Michigan’s third most populous, is using a program called “Ballot Verifier” to upload scans of every ballot cast for anyone to see. More than 80,000 ballots from the November 2025 election are already online, as is the “cast vote record,” which shows how tabulators read each ballot.

Images of cast ballots — which do not include a voter’s name, address, party affiliation, or other identifying information — are already public record and can be requested through local officials. Putting them online simply improves transparency, Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said.

“We all wonder, when we put our ballot in, ‘did it score it the right way?’” Forlini told Votebeat. “This takes a little bit of the mystery out of it and adds a little bit of accountability for all of us.”

The premise is simple: Let voters see the ballots, and they can judge the results for themselves. Since Michigan votes on paper ballots, that means anyone can see the sometimes wacky ways people fill in bubbles by hand — an X where a bubble should be, a rant scrawled next to a candidate’s name — right alongside write-in candidates, undervotes, and all the other markings that show the full range of voter intent.

Macomb County plans to post images going back through the November 2024 election and will include future elections in the program as well, Forlini said. He is running for secretary of state as a Republican.

Ballot Verifier caught his attention about a year ago, he said, after he saw how it worked. It’s been used in a few counties around the country in the past few years. In Ada County, Idaho, which adopted it about two years ago, elections director Saul Seyler said the program “has helped build public confidence.”

The program helped address election distrust at the roots, Seyler said. Ada County — Idaho’s most populous county and home to Boise — has worked to improve trust for years, including offering constant livestreams of the facilities where ballots are handled and adding more windows when remodeling their offices.

Ballot Verifier, he said, offered the chance for voters to ensure that the machines had counted their ballots correctly. Officials brought out some of the department’s “harshest critics” to provide feedback on the tool, Seyler said, and even they found it useful.

“Realistically, probably 95% of the public won’t ever use the tool, but there is something to the fact that it’s available,” he said. “There’s a confidence that gets built just by knowing it’s there.”

It has required some minor tweaks to protocol to ensure voters don’t accidentally violate their own right to a secret ballot. The county changed their ballot language, for instance, to make clear that ballots are public records and that voters shouldn’t leave identifying marks.

Voter privacy is one of the greatest concerns about such programs. Michigan voters have a right to a secret ballot. Maintaining that is key, said Mark Lindeman, policy and strategy director at Verified Voting, because ballot secrecy laws exist to protect voters from coercion or vote buying. Stray marks or seemingly random write-in choices can still tie a ballot directly to a voter, he said.

He pointed to the 2008 Minnesota Senate election recount, where a ballot that included several write-in spaces marked with “Lizard People” was not counted because canvassers agreed with a challenge characterizing it as an identifying mark, which goes against Minnesota’s laws.

Election officials need to find a “transparent way” to reject the ballots images that are “most blatantly potentially identifiable,” Lindeman said, which can look different depending on the ballot and an election’s circumstances.

In Ada County, officials tried to address the potential issue by working with Civera, the company that produces Ballot Verifier, to ensure that voters are “masked” if something about their ballot would identify them, meaning it won’t be made publicly available. It’s not unheard of for only a single voter in a precinct to get a specific combination of taxing districts on their ballot, for example, and officials wanted to make sure that ballot would still remain private.

That and other workflow changes can add yet another step to “an already kind of chaotic time,” Seyler said, but he believes the change has already saved Ada County money: he said the published ballot images and cast vote records have prevented at least two recounts by allowing potential challengers to review records without having to file for one.

“This can not only be a resource to help build trust, but it can also just help you operationally,” he said.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

ICE won’t be at polling places in 2026 election, Trump administration official says

2026-02-26T14:03:14+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not be stationed at polling places for the 2026 elections, an official from the Department of Homeland Security told election officials in a virtual meeting on Wednesday.

“Any suggestion that ICE is going to be present at polling places is simply disinformation,” said Heather Honey, the deputy assistant secretary of homeland security for election integrity, in response to a question from California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, according to five people who listened to the call and confirmed her comments to Votebeat. “There will be no ICE presence at polling locations for this election.”

It’s the most definitive statement yet from President Donald Trump’s administration on a question that has loomed large over the 2026 midterms. As ICE has ramped up immigration enforcement with highly visible operations in cities like Minneapolis, election officials and voting-rights advocates have voiced concern that ICE or other federal agents could attempt to interfere with the voting process on Election Day — particularly after Trump said he regretted not deploying the National Guard in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

In November, a White House spokesperson called concerns over armed agents at polling places “baseless conspiracy theories and Democrat talking points” but didn’t explicitly rule it out. Earlier this month, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “I haven’t heard the president discuss any formal plans to put ICE outside of polling locations,” but said she couldn’t guarantee that it wouldn’t happen.

Federal law makes it illegal to station “troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” Even so, some Republicans have continued to push the idea.

In a recent interview with CNBC, U.S. Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri questioned why ICE should be banned from polling places. On his podcast, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called for ICE to “surround the polls come November.” And Arizona state Sen. Jake Hoffman introduced a bill that would require federal immigration agents at every voting location in the state, although the proposal ultimately went nowhere.

Honey’s statement, however, may not placate everyone worried about federal interference at the polls. Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes told Votebeat after the call that he was not inclined to take Honey at her word. “It’s too bad that they used an election denier without any integrity to send that message,” he said, referring to Honey’s previous role as a prominent activist in the movement to question the 2020 election results. “We can’t guarantee that what she said was true,” Fontes said.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Honey’s statements on the virtual meeting or Fontes’ remarks. Honey has previously defended her prior work.

Also in the meeting on Wednesday, Honey said that the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database had helped states identify more than 300,000 dead people and 25,000 noncitizens on their voter rolls, people on the call said.

The Department of Homeland Security last year overhauled the SAVE database, which was originally designed to check immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits, to turn it into a voter-verification tool. However, the new version of the tool has produced many false positives, and election officials in Texas found that it had flagged some people as noncitizens even though they had already provided proof of their citizenship.

Honey also encouraged states to use hand-marked paper ballots whenever possible, people on the call said, though she said ballot-marking devices should be available for voters who need them. Trump has made unfounded claims that voting machines manipulated the results of the 2020 election and called on states to use exclusively paper ballots. According to Verified Voting, nearly 70% of registered voters already live in a jurisdiction that uses hand-marked paper ballots, and nearly every jurisdiction uses paper ballots in some form.

Otherwise, despite speculation leading up to the meeting, the call on Wednesday was a fairly standard gathering between state election officials and federal agencies whose work is relevant to elections. In addition to Honey, the call included representatives from the FBI, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which organized it.

“Today’s virtual meeting with our federal partners resembled previous ones the Secretaries of State have had with them, during both the Trump and Biden administrations,” Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams said in a statement. He said the federal representatives “reminded us of the resources they make available to help us election officials do our job” and “reaffirmed state officials’ primary role in the election process.”

Carrie Levine and Sasha Hupka contributed reporting.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Indiana bill would make early ballots traceable to voters

2026-02-23T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

For more than a century, American elections have operated around a simple promise: who you voted for is a secret. But a bill moving through the Indiana legislature would undermine that promise — at least for people who vote early.

House Bill 1359 would let counties have early voters feed their completed ballots directly into a scanning machine instead of placing them in a sealed secrecy envelope. It would then allow those ballots to be scanned starting on the first day of early voting, rather than waiting until closer to Election Day.

On its own, that process isn’t unusual — it’s similar to how ballots are handled at in-person polling places on Election Day. But the bill also authorizes counties to generate a unique identifier connected to each voter during early voting, print that number on the voter’s ballot, and allow officials to retract a scanned ballot if its voter is later found ineligible. That combination weakens the traditional separation between a voter’s identity and the ballot they cast.

Election officials and voting rights advocates argue those changes touch one of the most fundamental protections in modern democracy.

“Voters expect that when they cast a ballot, it is done privately, without the ability of clerks or staff to determine an individual’s actual vote,” Marion County Clerk Kate Sweeney Bell, a Democrat, said in a statement. The public is already “fatigued from political partisanship,” she said, and the additional requirements “will ramp up pressure on our staff and poll workers at the point of highest activity.”

The bill advanced out of committee the same day lawmakers added — without public testimony — an amendment that would reduce Indiana’s early voting period from 28 days to 16. If the measure passes, the changes would take effect before the May primary.

To understand why this matters, it helps to zoom out.

For the first half of American history, votes were cast publicly — often orally or by depositing colored party tickets into transparent containers — so that everyone present, including party operatives, knew exactly how each person voted. As a result, elections were rife with vote-buying, employer coercion, and party surveillance.

That started to change when states began adopting the secret ballot — also called the Australian ballot, after the country that exported the concept to the U.S. — in the 1880s and 1890s. States started printing their own ballots and setting up private voting booths so voters could mark their choices confidentially, fundamentally transforming elections from open spectacles into private acts.

Allowing ballots to be scanned within a system that uses voter-specific identifiers — and making those ballots retractable — is a step back in the opposite direction. Election scholars have long warned that even perceived weakening of ballot secrecy can erode public confidence, regardless of whether misuse occurs.

Support for the proposal has come primarily from Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Tim Wesco, who authored the bill, and Senate Elections Committee Chair Mike Gaskill, who offered the amendment to shorten early voting. Supporters have framed the changes as administrative improvements, arguing they would reduce costs, ease strain on county election offices, and allow for more efficient processing of early ballots.

During committee debate, however, lawmakers did not directly address how the early voting identifier system would affect the longstanding practice of keeping a voter’s identity separate from their ballot choices.

At least one Republican lawmaker, Sen. Greg Walker, voted against the piece because he opposes shortening early voting, citing concerns about its impact on voters in his district. So far, there have been no public reports of Republican lawmakers opposing the early voting identifier provision or raising concerns about its implications for ballot secrecy.

If you have questions about how ballots are handled in your county — or how this proposal would change that — shoot us an email. We want to hear from you.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Maricopa County recorder’s claim of 137 noncitizen voters may be too high

2026-02-19T23:54:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

Update, Feb. 19: The Arizona Attorney General’s Office and the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office told Votebeat on Thursday that Recorder Justin Heap’s office had not yet referred any alleged noncitizen voters to them for investigation, contradicting Heap’s announcement. Judy Keane, a spokesperson for Heap, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap claimed last week that his office had identified 137 noncitizens on the county’s voter rolls — but that number may be inflated, as the database he used to arrive at it has a history of inaccuracy.

In a press release, Heap’s office said it identified the noncitizens while attempting to confirm the citizenship status of 61,681 voters impacted by a longstanding state coding error by running them through a digital database maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It said the database confirmed the citizenship of 58,782 of those voters, or 95% of them, but flagged 137, or 0.2%, as noncitizens. Of those, it said 60 had voted in prior elections.

But experts have long warned that the system that the office used — called Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements, or SAVE — is unreliable. A ProPublica investigation found that the system provided incorrect information to at least five states. In Texas, election officials in several counties found it had identified people as noncitizens who had already proved their citizenship to the state Department of Public Safety.

It’s unclear whether Maricopa County attempted to weed out false positives from its data. Judy Keane, a spokesperson for the recorder’s office, declined to answer questions about whether staff took any additional steps to confirm the voters’ noncitizenship status beyond running their names through SAVE.

The recorder’s office said it would refer the alleged noncitizens who had previously cast ballots to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office and the Arizona Attorney General’s Office. However, on Feb. 19, both offices said they had not yet received those referrals from the recorder’s office. Keane did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the referrals had not yet been sent.

Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, said her office was not aware that county officials were using the SAVE database to identify noncitizens. She added that it was “imperative” for officials to independently research voters’ citizenship status before taking steps to cancel their registration, and said her office will contact the recorder’s office to determine whether those procedures were followed.

The recorder’s office’s announcement came hours after Heap, a Republican, appeared at a news conference held by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Scottsdale. As a state lawmaker, he aligned with some of the farthest-right members of the Arizona House, and during his 2024 campaign for county recorder, he said there were “inconsistences and illegalities that happened” in prior elections. In last week’s press release, he framed his use of the SAVE system and his collaboration with the federal government as a move to ensure “election integrity.”

But in other states, Republican election officials’ initial estimates of noncitizen voters have often been found to be too high. For example, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate claimed in October 2024 that he had identified more than 2,000 noncitizens on his state’s voter rolls. Later, that number was revised down to 277. Officials in Texas, Missouri, and other states have been forced to make similar corrections.

“There have been times when a handful of election officials have acted highly politically in order to feed a narrative about fraud, and their claims so far have not withstood even minor scrutiny over time,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research. He added that “claims made without transparency about methodology,” like Heap’s, should “be taken with a giant mountain of salt.”

One of the reasons that estimates of noncitizens are often inflated is that false matches are common — often, several voters living in the same state, county, or city have similar names and the same date of birth. Plus, each year, hundreds of thousands of people become naturalized citizens, and they rarely take steps afterward to update their status with various government agencies. And when they do, government systems are often slow to update.

The SAVE system was initially designed in the 1980s to check immigrants’ eligibility for public benefits. In Arizona, election officials have sometimes used it to verify a registrant’s citizenship. State law mandates that county recorders “use all available resources to verify the citizenship status” of those registering to vote without providing a passport, birth certificate, or similar document.

But the system long required specific identification numbers that local officials didn’t have for most voters. It also couldn’t verify the citizenship status of U.S.-born citizens.

That changed last year, when the Department of Homeland Security revamped the tool to add citizenship data for U.S.-born citizens and allow states to upload thousands of names to it at once. However, the rush to turn SAVE into a voter verification tool made it prone to errors, ProPublica reported.

In light of that, Becker said he suspects the recorder’s office’s claim about noncitizens on the voter rolls is “a vast overstatement that will shrink significantly under further scrutiny.”

“Even taking his investigation at face value — which I think is probably questionable — the rate of noncitizen voting in Arizona is minuscule,” Becker said. “I think the recorder just proved that Arizona is doing a great job of keeping noncitizens off its voter lists.”

Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org.

What if everyone had to prove their citizenship to register to vote?

2026-02-16T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Presidents’ Day is always the hardest holiday to shop for; it’s hard to know what to get the president in your life. But the U.S. House of Representatives got President Donald Trump exactly what he wanted when it passed the SAVE America Act on Wednesday.

The act, which passed with the support of all 217 House Republicans but only one Democrat, is a centerpiece of Trump’s agenda to exercise more federal oversight over elections and prevent illegal voting, which is already very rare. It’s essentially version 2.0 of the SAVE Act, which passed the House last year.

Like its predecessor, the SAVE America Act would require people who are registering to vote to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship. (Currently, new registrants only have to attest under penalty of perjury that they are citizens.) This version of the bill also adds a photo ID requirement for voters and requires states to run their voter rolls through the Department of Homeland Security’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to scan for noncitizens. All provisions of the bill would take effect immediately upon enactment.

But enactment is unlikely. The filibuster rule effectively means that legislation needs 60 votes to pass the Senate, and Republicans hold only a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber. Some Republicans are pushing to turn the filibuster from a procedural formality into a literal requirement that Democrats hold the floor and talk indefinitely in order to block the bill, which could allow the bill to pass with a simple majority if Democrats run out of steam. But that would derail the Senate for weeks, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune isn’t making encouraging noises.

If the bill does somehow become law, though, it would dramatically shake up how the 2026 elections run. Only three states currently require all newly registering voters to prove their citizenship, and 27 states don’t require photo IDs to vote, so the bill would suddenly impose new requirements on millions of Americans.

And there are serious questions about whether it’s even practically possible to implement them all in time for the midterm elections. Election officials are sounding the alarm about how the bill would force them to build out entirely new procedures without the time or money to do so.

The SAVE America Act could stymie potential voters

The proof-of-citizenship requirement in particular would be a hassle for potential voters and election officials alike. According to a 2023 survey conducted by SSRS on behalf of the University of Maryland and three voting-rights groups, 9% of voting-age citizens don’t have easy access to a document that proves their citizenship, such as a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization certificate.

Even people with the correct paperwork could be confused or inconvenienced too. Several election officials have compared a proof-of-citizenship requirement to the Transportation Security Administration’s slow rollout of REAL ID requirements. That policy was repeatedly delayed amid confusion over what documents were necessary to get a REAL ID and bottlenecks at driver’s license agencies.

The SAVE America Act would also effectively neuter the option to register to vote by mail or online, since new registrants would have to show up in person with their documentation.

In states that have already tried to implement proof-of-citizenship requirements, many eligible voters ended up getting disenfranchised. After Kansas started requiring proof of citizenship in 2013, 31,089 people were unable to register because they couldn’t prove their citizenship. That amounted to 12% of all the people who tried to register to vote in Kansas during that period. By contrast, the state could identify only 39 confirmed noncitizens who had registered to vote in the previous 14 years.

A court struck down Kansas’ proof-of-citizenship law in 2018.

An election administration ‘nightmare’

“This is bad for voters, but this will be a nightmare for election administrators,” Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, told Votebeat.

Multiple election officials said that adding document verification to their already very full plates was a logistical burden that they were not prepared to assume. Many felt that it was simply not possible to implement a proof-of-citizenship requirement in time for the midterms, especially since the SAVE America Act does not provide them with additional funding to, for example, hire more staff to review documents.

“We are going to have significant challenges training all of our clerks and registrars to uniformly verify citizenship,” said Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a Democrat. “We will have to create the training from scratch, and we don’t have the personnel to travel to all 487 municipalities [in Maine] to make sure that they’re doing it right.”

“If Congress wants to do this,” she said, “they should give the states the proper runway of multiple years and millions of dollars of funding per state.”

Justin Riemer, the president of the group Restoring Integrity and Trust in Elections, which has advocated for proof-of-citizenship requirements, was more optimistic that states were up to the task. “States will undoubtedly have to move very quickly to implement this legislation,” he said, “but there is precedent, as states did [quickly change their voting procedures] during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Riemer pointed out that a plurality of new voters already register through their state department of motor vehicles, whose staffs are already well trained in document verification thanks to the REAL ID requirements.

A proof-of-citizenship requirement would undeniably cost election officials more time and money, though. According to a social media post by Bob Page, the registrar of voters in Orange County, California, the county conducted an analysis last year of what it would have taken to prove the citizenship of the 633,568 people who registered to vote or updated their voter registration in 2024. The study found that, at an average of 10 minutes per applicant whose documentation needed to be verified, the county would have needed to hire 59 additional staffers at a cost of $6 million.

And according to a report from the Campaign Legal Center, proof-of-citizenship laws cost Kansas and Arizona (one of the three states where the requirement is currently in place) millions of dollars — in additional staffing, voter-education efforts, system upgrades, fixing errors, and defending against lawsuits over the requirements.

Ultimately, as long as the filibuster remains in place in the Senate, the SAVE America Act has little chance of becoming law before the midterms.

But that may be the point: The bill wasn’t introduced with the goal of making elections run more smoothly; it was introduced to make the point that elections aren’t as secure as they could be. If, as expected, the bill fails and voters don’t have to prove their citizenship or show photo ID in 2026, it could make it easier for Trump and his allies to claim that the results are tainted by fraud. That could be a different type of nightmare scenario.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Votebeat editor-in-chief Carrie Levine contributed.

Kristi Noem’s hastily-arranged Arizona visit stokes rumors in wake of feds’ unprecedented actions

2026-02-13T22:36:16+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made a hastily-scheduled appearance in Arizona on Friday to push for federal legislation that would institute photo identification and proof of citizenship requirements for voters nationwide.

The announcement that Noem was planning to hold a press conference about “election security” at an undisclosed location in Maricopa County sparked rumors, ultimately baseless, about the purpose of her visit and whether it signaled an election investigation. Her press conference was scheduled to be held just hours before her agency was set to run out of funding and face a partial shutdown.

Ultimately, her focus on the SAVE America Act highlighted the emphasis that President Donald Trump’s administration is placing on the legislation, which just passed the U.S. House of Representatives but faces a difficult path in the U.S. Senate.

Materials initially distributed to journalists announcing the event contained few details — just that Noem would be joined by local leaders to discuss election security.

The announcement came as the Trump administration has been taking increasingly aggressive steps on elections. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently conducted an unprecedented search of an election office in Fulton County, Georgia, another critical election battleground. Last week, Trump said Republicans “ought to nationalize the voting.” The Justice Department is also suing Arizona for its unredacted voter rolls, one of 25 such lawsuits that it has filed against states and Washington, D.C..

As word of the event began to spread locally, supervisors in Maricopa County called an emergency, closed-door meeting to receive “legal advice” about their “authority and responsibilities regarding election administration.” Jason Berry, a county spokesperson, declined to confirm whether the sudden session on Thursday afternoon was related to Noem’s planned visit.

Meanwhile, election officials statewide told Votebeat that Noem’s visit caught them by surprise, and that they hadn’t been briefed on it.

Reporters who had RSVPed to attend the event were notified late Thursday that they should report to a DHS office in Phoenix. They would then be taken by shuttle to an undisclosed location with limited cell service and no Internet access, per the message.

That location turned out to be an office building for Homeland Security Investigations in Scottsdale, located about 30 minutes from the meeting point in Phoenix. Journalists were transported in unmarked government SUVs, and upon arrival, waited more than an hour for Noem to take the podium.

When she did, she asserted that it was “a fact” that noncitizens were voting in elections, and added that the SAVE America Act was “absolutely critical to our country’s future.” She was joined at the event by several GOP officials from Arizona, including U.S. Rep. Eli Crane, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap, and others.

Evidence overwhelmingly shows that noncitizen voting is rare. Arizona already requires its voters to show photo identification at the polls and to provide proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate or passport — in order to register to vote in state and local races. Voters can register to cast ballots in federal elections without showing such documents, but must still attest to their citizenship status under penalty of perjury.

Later, Noem blasted Arizona’s election processes and procedures, saying it needs “more improvement” than any other state.

“Your state has been an absolute disaster on elections,” she said. “Your leaders have failed you dramatically, by not having systems that work, by disenfranchising Americans who wanted to vote, that had to stand in lines for hours, because machines failed or software failed.”

Those remarks drew quick condemnation from top state officials. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, accused Noem of “grandstanding” and “spreading misinformation.” Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office, said that Noem had not reached out to Fontes to meet with him about election security during her visit.

“Don’t come into Arizona there from Washington, D.C., and tell us how to run our elections,” Fontes said in a taped statement responding to Noem’s comments. “We’re doing just fine without you, thank you very much.”

Sasha Hupka is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Sasha at shupka@votebeat.org.

Republicans introduce sweeping election legislation, but it’s unlikely to become law

2026-01-30T18:19:01+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Congressional Republicans on Thursday redoubled their efforts to regulate elections nationwide, introducing two new bills that draw heavily from President Donald Trump’s agenda.

U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil, the chair of the House Administration Committee, unveiled the Make Elections Great Again Act, a bill that would overhaul several aspects of how elections are run, from limiting the use of mail voting to setting a national photo ID requirement for voting.

Later in the day, Sen. Mike Lee and Rep. Chip Roy introduced the SAVE America Act, which combines a photo ID requirement for voters with the SAVE Act, a bill passed by the House last year to require Americans to prove their citizenship when registering to vote.

Both the MEGA Act and SAVE America Act face long odds of becoming law anytime soon. Although the measures could pass the Republican-controlled House, they would almost certainly fail in the Senate, where the filibuster effectively means that legislation needs 60 votes to pass. (Republicans control the Senate only 53-47.) Given that both bills go farther than the SAVE Act, which has languished in the upper chamber for almost a year, there’s little reason to expect they would have any more luck in the Senate.

Trump and his allies have for years been intent on changing the way U.S. elections are run, building on their false assertions of widespread fraud. In recent days, billionaire Elon Musk has used his social-media site X to pressure senators to pass the SAVE Act, which may explain the timing of the two new bills.

Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has also attempted to exercise extraordinary power over election administration, suing 24 states and Washington, D.C., for not sharing comprehensive data on their registered voters and issuing a sweeping executive order on elections last year. The bills also come the same week that the FBI seized ballots from the 2020 election from an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia, in search of evidence of malfeasance.

So far, however, key provisions of Trump’s executive order have been struck down in court, and in recent months, he’s repeatedly called on Congress to pass legislation enacting his election-related priorities. The two proposals contain several policies from Trump’s 2025 executive order.

In November, the White House press secretary said the White House was working on a second executive order on elections, but one has yet to materialize.

What the Republican election bills would do

Should they ever pass, the SAVE America Act and especially the MEGA Act would represent the most transformative federal law aimed at reshaping national election administration in decades.

Both bills would:

Require Americans to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship (such as a passport) when registering to vote. Currently, new registrants must attest that they are a U.S. citizen, but most people aren’t required to provide documentation to prove it. According to Ballotpedia, Arizona, New Hampshire, and Wyoming are the only states that currently require proof of citizenship to register to vote.
Require voters to provide photo ID. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 23 states ask voters to provide photo IDs; in 13 states, non-photo IDs are acceptable, while 14 states plus Washington, D.C., don’t ask voters for ID. Notably, the ID requirement would apply not only to in-person voters, but also to mail voters, who would have to provide photocopies of their IDs (although the MEGA Act allows voters to provide unique identifying numbers, such as the last four digits of their Social Security number, instead). Currently, only Arkansas and North Carolina require mail voters to enclose copies of their IDs.
Require states to regularly check their voter rolls for noncitizens. For example, the MEGA Act would require states to compare their voter lists against the Department of Homeland Security’s citizenship database, known as SAVE, on at least a monthly basis. The Trump administration upgraded SAVE last year to make it easier to use for large-scale searches, and the department said in November that 26 states are now using it for voter verification.

The MEGA Act also includes a host of other provisions, such as:

Banning universal vote-by-mail. In other words, the eight states (plus Washington, D.C.) that automatically mail ballots to every voter would no longer be allowed to do so.
Prohibiting states from accepting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day. Currently, 14 states and Washington, D.C., do this, as long as the ballots are postmarked on time. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of this practice later this year.
Barring anyone except the voter, an immediate family member, or caregiver from possessing the voter’s ballot. Each state has different rules about who (if anyone) can return a mail voter’s ballot for them, but several have laws broad enough that allow third parties, such as campaign operatives, to do so — a practice Republicans have described as “ballot harvesting.”
Requiring states to provide hand-marked paper ballots. According to Verified Voting, nearly 70% of registered voters already live in a jurisdiction that uses hand-marked paper ballots. Most of the remaining jurisdictions use ballot-marking devices, which would be still legal under the bill, but they would need to provide voters with the option to hand-mark their ballots as well.
Outlawing ranked-choice voting. This would affect only a few jurisdictions. Alaska, Maine, and Washington, D.C., are the only places that use ranked-choice voting in federal elections in the regular course of business. However, Georgia also uses it for military and overseas voters, and Hawaii uses it for special elections.

The provisions in both bills would only apply to federal elections, forcing states to choose between changing their state election laws to match and administering federal and state elections differently. Either way, the bill would likely create more work for election officials. Given how many states would have to change their voting procedures, the enactment of either of these bills would send officials scrambling to adapt to unfamiliar requirements.

And if officials fail to live up to the law, they could be held liable in new ways. The MEGA Act explicitly allows the attorney general, and even private citizens, to file civil lawsuits against election officials for noncompliance.

Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas, a Democrat, said that this type of broad mandate from the federal government “not only potentially disenfranchises voters, but it also ignores how under-resourced elections and secretaries of state are in general.”

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Correction, Feb. 6, 2026, 10:09 a.m.: This story has been corrected to reflect that Washington, D.C., will use ranked-choice voting starting in 2026 and that Georgia and Hawaii also use ranked-choice voting in some circumstances. It has also been corrected to reflect that the Department of Justice has sued 24 states and Washington, D.C., for not handing over their voter rolls, not 23 states.

State election officials project confidence after FBI search of Georgia elections office

2026-01-29T19:02:40+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

The FBI’s search of a Fulton County, Georgia, election office, sent shock waves through election offices nationwide that have spent years responding to lawsuits, audits, and investigations driven by President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election.

But state election officials — many of them gathered this week for a national conference — projected confidence afterward, saying their work has already withstood years of scrutiny following the 2020 election, and they have followed federal and state law.

Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, said election officials are “concerned” and “upset,” and believe “a certain individual is trying to intimidate us” ahead of the 2026 and 2028 elections. At the same time, he said, officials want voters to know they are running “safe, secure, and accessible elections,” with safeguards that are continually reviewed and improved.

Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican and the state’s chief elections officer, said the only response to heightened scrutiny is strict adherence to the law. “We’re committed to orderly and fair elections, no matter what political party the voter belongs to,” she said. “But we live in a reality where politicians politicize stuff.”

Those comments came as the National Association of Secretaries of State met this week for its annual winter conference, with the FBI’s search in Georgia hanging over the gathering. The conference schedule shifted amid the uncertainty, with NASS officials offering late confirmation that Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard would address the group on Friday.

Tensions surfaced Thursday as speakers addressed the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive push for greater federal control over elections. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat and former secretary of state, referenced the Fulton County search and called it a “wake-up call” for election officials.

Later, West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner, a Republican, introduced Jared Borg, a special assistant to the president and deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, noting that Borg had been asked to speak about the administration’s future plans — including the possibility of a second executive order on elections. Borg did not address that issue during his remarks and declined to comment when asked about it afterward.

The FBI on Wednesday executed a broad search warrant at a Fulton County elections office as part of a federal investigation into the handling and preservation of 2020 election records. A federal judge authorized agents to search for ballots, tabulator records, ballot images, and voter rolls, citing potential violations of federal election law.

The search came a week after Trump repeated his claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged and said “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”

Trump-appointed officials at the Justice Department and other agencies in 2020 said they had found no evidence of fraud swaying the outcome of the election, and allegations of it from Trump and his allies were rejected by courts, election officials, and experts after multiple audits and reviews found Trump lost the election to Joe Biden.

The raid in Fulton County, which Gabbard was present for, is the latest escalation of Trump’s efforts to use the federal government’s authority and resources to continue pursuing those allegations over elections. And it’s the most visible federal law enforcement step to date connected to Trump’s long-running claims of widespread election misconduct, raising concern among election administrators about continued scrutiny years after the election.

Last week, Bondi sent a letter to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pressing the Justice Department’s demands for voter roll data amid tense discussions over immigration enforcement efforts there, prompting Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon to call it “an outrageous attempt to coerce Minnesota into giving the federal government private data on millions of U.S. Citizens in violation of state and federal law.”

Election officials have openly said they are preparing for a range of scenarios including potential federal intervention in the administration of the 2026 midterm elections.

Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, framed the FBI action as politically motivated.

“This administration is weaponizing law enforcement across the board and in this case for the purpose of satisfying the president’s obsession with his 2020 election loss,” Fontes told Votebeat in a statement. “If Arizona is next, so be it. We’ve got nothing to hide and they’ve got nothing to prove.”

Warrant leaves key questions unanswered

The search warrant stands out for its breadth and timing: Issued more than five years after the 2020 election, it authorizes federal agents to seize nearly all of Fulton County’s election records from that contest, including ballots, tabulator tapes, ballot images, and voter rolls, rather than just materials tied to specific allegations.

The warrant cites federal records-retention and election-crime statutes, though required retention periods have long since passed, and allows government attorneys to take custody of and independently review the seized materials. Both statutes are typically subject to a five-year statute of limitations, which would have expired in 2025 for conduct related to the 2020 election.

David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said he is not aware of any evidence that Fulton County destroyed election records before retention requirements expired and said the county appears to have preserved its ballots.

Becker said the five-year limitation has run out and leaves “no possible claim” tied to how the election was conducted.

Becker added that seizing ballots years after an election raises separate concerns, including new chain-of-custody problems that could undermine the integrity of any evidence gathered. “We have no idea what’s going to happen to those ballots once they’re seized,” he said, warning that such uncertainty could itself create evidentiary issues.

A rare federal search, in a county long targeted by Trump

Fulton County is Georgia’s most populous county, and encompasses most of Atlanta. Its unique position helps explain why federal investigators are still seeking access to physical ballots and detailed election records years after the election. The county has faced sustained litigation, audits, and public-records disputes tied to the 2020 vote, creating pressure to retain ballots and related materials long after many states stopped keeping them.

That prolonged scrutiny overlaps with Fulton County’s central role in Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 loss in Georgia, a Republican stronghold that flipped for Biden and also elected two Democratic senators in the same election cycle. Trump and his allies repeatedly singled out the county as evidence of a stolen election, even after recounts, audits, and court rulings upheld the results, keeping local election officials under pressure long after most jurisdictions moved on.

The FBI search followed earlier attempts by the Justice Department to obtain 2020 election records through the courts. In December, the department sued Fulton County after officials declined to turn over ballots and related materials without a court order, arguing the records were sealed. The lawsuit sought access to the same categories of records later named in the search warrant, marking a shift from civil litigation to criminal process.

Fulton County did not respond to an interview request, and the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office declined to comment.

States say their systems have already been tested

For election officials elsewhere, the Georgia search underscores just how atypical Fulton County’s situation has become. Many states say their 2020 election systems were examined exhaustively and are governed by clear legal timelines for record retention, making similar searches for 2020 records less likely.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said the FBI’s search in Fulton County was rooted in “unproven conspiracy theories” about the 2020 election. While election officials welcome good-faith questions, Benson said, they reject efforts “driven by conspiracy theories” and “verifiably untrue claims” to use the federal government to intimidate election workers or interfere with elections for political purposes.

Calli Jones, a spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, said the agency is notifying county election officials about the situation in Georgia but is not issuing formal guidance. She said the office is preparing in case a similar situation were to arise in Arizona and is available, along with its legal staff, to assist counties with questions about record retention.

She added that Arizona no longer has 2020 ballots, because state law requires counties to destroy ballots within 24 months of an election.

Pennsylvania election officials were “not aware of similar activity taking place in Pennsylvania,” a spokesperson for the Department of State said in a statement, emphasizing that the state’s 2020 election “was free, fair, safe, and secure,” with results upheld repeatedly by state and federal courts.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Why Trump can’t cancel the 2026 midterms — and why that fear distracts from the real risk

2026-01-26T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump floated the idea of canceling the 2026 midterm elections, drawing widespread attention and concern even as White House officials later dismissed the remarks as facetious.

But election experts consistently agree that Trump has neither the legal authority nor the practical ability to cancel elections. And state and local election officials consistently say they will carry out the elections they’re legally required to run.

Live event: Will the midterms happen? Your election questions, answered

The election system is under real strain, and bad-faith efforts to undermine it are serious. But after talking with local election officials, lawyers, and administrators across the country, I don’t see evidence that upcoming elections are at realistic risk of not happening at all. Elections happen because thousands of local officials follow state and local law that mandates them — and history shows they’ve done so before, even under immense pressure. The greater danger isn’t no election, but one that’s chaotic, unfairly challenged, or deliberately cast as illegitimate after the fact.

Stephen Richer, the Republican former recorder in Maricopa County, Arizona, said the idea that a president could simply halt or meaningfully cancel an election misunderstands how elections function on the ground. The system, he said, is “made up of so many disparate actors” — thousands of local officials, courts, vendors, and administrators operating under different authorities and timelines. Even if there were a coordinated attempt to get these people not to go through with the election, “you’ve got to figure at least half of those people aren’t big fans of the president, and many of the rest are on autopilot regardless of what they think of the president.”

Some election processes are fixed by law and timing. Military and overseas ballots, for example, must be sent on a specific schedule — a deadline Richer described as “an immutable deadline, like gravity.” Any attempt to disrupt that selectively would quickly become obvious. “How absurd would it be that one county got ballots and the next one didn’t?” he said, predicting “a gazillion lawsuits” and court orders compelling officials to move forward.

Richer also pointed to the scale of U.S. election administration: more than 9,000 jurisdictions and more than 90,000 polling locations nationwide. “You are not going around and shutting those down,” he said. He noted that even voter-intimidation efforts would face immediate legal challenges and injunctions, while plenty of voters would have cast ballots via other means (e.g., early or mail voting) anyway.

That assessment is echoed by David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, who speaks regularly with local election officials. (When we spoke, he was driving to a conference for Colorado election officials — and had just come from a conference of 300 officials in Texas.) Becker said nearly 1,500 local officials across 47 states have participated in his monthly informational sessions, which he’s held since Trump put out his executive order last March, and none of them have suggested canceling the election or violating state law.

“Every single one of them is committed to putting on the best election they possibly can,” Becker said. Even under pressure, officials aren’t signaling they’ll stop. “They are getting it done,” he said, adding that if support doesn’t come from the state, “they will band together and do it themselves.”

But state election officials aren’t backing down, either. Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, a Democrat, says elections will proceed as planned regardless of what Trump might say. The academics and media stars gaining popularity and attention for saying otherwise are being “disingenuous” and “dangerous,” he said.

Courts have also played a critical role when local officials have threatened to overstep their authority. In 2020, even light suggestions that Trump might delay the election to accommodate COVID were met with outrage. After the 2020 election, judges made clear that certification is not discretionary and ordered officials to follow election law and move the process forward, even amid intense political pressure.

Those same state and local laws remain in place today. Courts and election offices are also better positioned than they were four years ago, with legal strategies drafted, training in place, and judges already familiar with these arguments. Across the country, clerks and secretaries of state describe updating contingency plans, consulting attorneys, and stress-testing procedures much as they would for a natural disaster or cyberattack.

If you’re worried about what lies ahead, election officials say there are meaningful ways to respond — and that spreading fear isn’t one of them. Richer said the bigger danger now is renewed distrust of election results. That distrust makes it easier for those in power to make bad-faith attempts to twist the math after votes are cast.

His advice is straightforward: “Continue being a repository for facts and truth about election administration, and kindly and sensitively inject those into conversations that you are a part of if you hear something you know to be wrong.” He added, “Don’t be dismissive. It never works.” And, he said, “you are responsible for the false information you spread.”

Aguilar said that academic voices predicting doom “don’t understand the nuances” of state and local law and that voters should be skeptical of them. Those who want better information should go to their local and state elections offices.

There’s also a risk that continually framing elections as likely not to happen — or as already lost — could have the opposite of the intended effect, discouraging participation rather than protecting democracy. If you’re concerned about what might happen in your county, there are concrete ways to help now: sign up to be a poll worker, volunteer to help register voters, offer your business or community space as a polling location, or donate to organizations preparing to defend election laws and certification in court.

Elections don’t happen just because people assume they will. They happen because people — especially at the local level — show up and do the work.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Trump regrets not calling up troops after the 2020 election. What stops him in 2026?

2026-01-19T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Regrets — we’ve all had a few. One of President Donald Trump’s, apparently, is not directing the National Guard to seize voting machines after the 2020 election in search of evidence of fraud.

That revelation, part of a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times on Jan. 7, commands particular attention in a world where Trump has already sought to push the boundaries of his power, deploying the National Guard to multiple U.S. cities to crack down on protests and crime. The November midterms will be the first federal general election with Trump as president since that 2020 contest, and even before his comments to the Times, plenty of people were already worried that Trump would attempt to deploy the National Guard around the 2026 election.

The National Guard isn’t necessarily the problem here; the Guard actually has a history of helping with election administration, such as when troops in civilian clothing helped fill in for absent poll workers during the pandemic in 2020. But many Democrats and election officials are worried that Trump could, say, send them to polling places to interfere with voting on Election Day. If troops were to take possession of voting machines or other equipment, it could break the chain of custody and invalidate scads of ballots. And if troops just show up outside polling places, even if they don’t try to impede the administration of the election, their presence could still intimidate voters.

That’s a worst-case scenario. However, there are significant legal and practical barriers to Trump doing this.

First, it’s clearly illegal: Federal law prohibits stationing “troops or armed men at any place where a general or special election is held, unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” It’s also illegal for members of the military to prevent, or attempt to prevent, an eligible voter from voting and to interfere “in any manner with an election officer’s discharge of his duties.” That could include taking possession of voting machines.

Even the Insurrection Act — which grants the president wide leeway to use the military for domestic law enforcement in emergencies, and which Trump threatened to invoke just last week in Minneapolis — wouldn’t give troops the right to break these laws, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Second, courts have so far significantly reined in Trump’s existing National Guard deployments — raising questions about whether he’d even have control of the Guard in key states. In December, the Supreme Court signed off on a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump administration from deploying troops to Illinois, whose Democratic governor had challenged his authority to do so. (National Guard troops are usually under the command of their state’s governor.)

The Supreme Court’s order for now functionally limits Trump to deploying the National Guard in states where he has the governor’s consent. And the 2026 midterm elections are likely to be decided in states whose governors mostly aren’t the type to let Trump deploy troops there. Of the 60 U.S. House seats currently listed as “in play” by Inside Elections, an election handicapping website, 38 are in states with Democratic governors.

And while the path to the U.S. Senate majority does mostly run through red states, and Republicans have, on the whole, not shown much interest in standing up to Trump, it’s not a given that every Republican governor would acquiesce to Trump sending in troops — especially for as norm-shattering a reason as to police an election.

The New York Times also reported this week that multiple Republican politicians privately criticized Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And plenty of sitting Republican governors have had their differences with Trump publicly as well:

Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio (home to three competitive House seats and a pivotal Senate race) is very much an old guard Republican who has objected to Trump’s most controversial behavior.
Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa (also home to three competitive House seats and a potentially interesting Senate race) endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries and is not running for reelection this year.
Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire (home to two competitive House seats and a vulnerable Democratic-held Senate seat) is a moderate Republican who disavowed Trump in 2016 and waited a conspicuously long time to endorse him in 2024.
Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia (home to another vulnerable Democratic Senate seat) famously rebuffed Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election result in his state.

The Trump administration has thrown cold water all over the idea that it will mobilize the National Guard this November. A White House spokesperson told NPR in November that concerns about troops at polling places were “baseless conspiracy theories and Democrat talking points.” And in an interview with Vanity Fair late last year, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said that “it is categorically false, will not happen.”

But given Trump’s avowed interest in using the National Guard to subvert an election, many officials aren’t taking any chances. At a conference of local election administrators earlier this month in Virginia, attendees were already gaming out what to do in a scenario where armed troops arrive at a polling place.

Any attempt to use the military to influence the election — even if it’s quickly extinguished by a court — would be one of the most brazen acts of election interference in modern times. Whether or not it ultimately affected the outcome of the election, it could still shatter many Americans’ belief in the sanctity of the voting booth.

Nathaniel Rakich is Votebeat’s managing editor and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Nathaniel at nrakich@votebeat.org.

Michigan clerk claims he found 15 noncitizens registered to vote — but his data may not be reliable

2026-01-16T20:07:44+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Anthony Forlini, the Macomb County clerk and a Republican candidate to be Michigan’s next secretary of state, said this week that he had found more than a dozen noncitizens on his county’s voter rolls — but there’s reason to be skeptical of his claims.

Forlini told Votebeat on Thursday that a comparison of the county’s jury pool — specifically, the more than 230 people who have recused themselves from jury duty since September by saying they are not U.S. citizens — and the state’s qualified voter file found 15 people who were on both lists.

Forlini said his data shows that “the system is flawed” and needs adjustments. But comparing two separate lists is generally a fraught way to find actual noncitizens on the voter rolls, experts say, and verifying his findings will be difficult. As other states have repeatedly found, lists of people identified as noncitizens are often inaccurate or outdated. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people become naturalized citizens, for instance, and they rarely take steps afterward to update their status with various government agencies.

During a press conference Monday, Monika Rittner, a department supervisor in Forlini’s office, said that three of the 15 people flagged as potential noncitizens had voted before, including one who had voted “several times but has since been removed.”

The jury pool Forlini cited comes from the state driver’s license database, which is separate from the qualified voter file (even though both are maintained by the Michigan Department of State). People do not need to be U.S. citizens to get a license or state ID in Michigan.

David Becker, executive director and founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, and his team have looked into noncitizen voting complaints across the country and found that most allegations are the result of “misunderstandings, mischaracterizations, or outright fabrications about complex voter data,” as CEIR detailed in a July report.

“It is extremely hard to compare data from a jury questionnaire to data in a QVF with certainty and without false positives,” Becker told Votebeat. “Even if you get that part right, there’s still multiple ways in which the data can be misinterpreted.”

Forlini argued that his comparisons were functionally foolproof. He said his team compared names, ages, and addresses to verify that it was the same person who appeared on both lists.

“The scope that we’re doing it, this wasn’t a mass-produced thing,” he said Thursday. “It was a list where we looked at each individual person.”

He has since sent the idea on to other county clerks, and said many of them have thanked him for it.

Forlini said Monday he was handing the information off to Macomb County Corporation Counsel Frank Krycia. On Friday, Forlini said Krycia had handed it off to law enforcement but declined to say which agencies, adding that he’d been advised not to name them while the matter was under investigation. Krycia did not return a call seeking comment.

Forlini is a Republican candidate to be Michigan’s next secretary of state, although he said he was checking for noncitizen voters in his “role as a county clerk.” Doing that work was a matter of “operational efficiency,” he said.

“I’m looking to make things better,” he said.

In recent years, Republicans around Michigan and across the U.S. have zeroed in on noncitizen voting as a threat to American elections. An instance in Ann Arbor in 2024, where a University of Michigan student from China allegedly cast a ballot and turned himself in before fleeing the country, became a focus of Republicans looking to pass a proof-of-citizenship requirement in the state.

The Michigan Department of State said it would look into the claims once Forlini’s office gives it the necessary information.

“We can’t fully evaluate his claims because he hasn’t shared specific details about the list he reviewed, how it was compiled, and how he determined these people were noncitizens,” Angela Benander, a department spokesperson, said in an email.

Noncitizen voting is extremely rare in Michigan and across the country. The Michigan Department of State conducted its own lengthy review of the state’s driving records and voting records last year and found that, across the state during the 2024 general election, it appeared a total of 16 noncitizens had cast ballots — 0.00028% of the more than 5.7 million ballots cast.

“Our department did several rounds of validation in this review to make sure that these individuals actually cast a ballot and to verify their citizenship status,” Benander said in an email. “In each additional round of review, we found more individuals who may have initially appeared to be non-citizens but were, in fact, a U.S. citizen legally able to vote in 2024.”

The state has since established “an ongoing review process” to identify possible cases as they come up.

Other states that have conducted similar audits have turned up similarly minuscule numbers. Georgia, for instance, found about 20 noncitizens in its statewide voter roll of more than 8.2 million people in 2024.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

All about the ‘chain of custody,’ the process that keeps elections secure

2026-01-16T15:48:13+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

In any given election, a whole lot of people handle the ballots and voting equipment. So how does a ballot stay secure and countable after it’s left the voter’s hands?

That’s possible thanks to a critical safeguard in election administration called the chain of custody. The chain of custody is a huge part of why voters can trust that their ballots are counted exactly as they intended.

Voters may not give much thought to this process, but if you’re concerned about the security of your ballot and the integrity of your vote, here’s a full explanation of how the chain of custody works.

What is the chain of custody?

The chain of custody is the process that ensures election materials are handled properly and by the correct people at every step, between when ballots are printed and when everything is put into storage after the election. It involves a prodigious amount of documentation of who is handling election materials, when, and what they do with them.

As the U.S. Election Assistance Commission noted in a 2021 report, “it is a best practice for chain of custody procedures to be clearly defined in advance of every election, well documented and followed consistently throughout the entire election lifecycle or process.”

It can seem tedious, but every link in the chain helps keep the election on track, and every piece of documentation makes it possible to retrace election officials’ steps.

How do election officials maintain the chain of custody?

The chain of custody starts long before a voter even sees their ballot. When blank ballots arrive from the printers, election workers document how many were received and when they arrived. When workers take voting machines out of storage, they write down their serial numbers and note their condition.

To make sure no unauthorized people can access these sensitive materials, election administrators often seal their offices (or wherever the materials are stored) starting at the very beginning of election season, when the first blank ballots arrive from the printers. That means many officials spend weeks redirecting packages or even cleaning their own offices to ensure no non-election officials, such as postal workers or custodial staffers, walk in.

From there, it is a matter of keeping intense and highly specific records whenever election materials are moved, such as when ballots and voting machines are taken to precincts on Election Day. And when a new person in the chain takes possession of the materials, they consult those records to make sure the chain is still intact, said Tina Barton, senior election expert at the Elections Group and a former election official.

For instance, in Barton’s home state of Michigan, the pollbook for each precinct includes the serial numbers of that precinct’s voting machines, as well as the number from the machine’s locking seal (basically a stronger version of a zip tie, with an identifying number on it). When pollworkers arrive on Election Day morning, they compare the numbers in the pollbook with the numbers on the machine and seal. And if there are any irregularities — boxes that have been opened, for instance, or equipment that had to be changed out — they document them.

At each subsequent step in the process, documents are added to the record. Poll workers generally take note of who hands a ballot to which voter when, how the voter’s identity was verified, and any other factors that may be important.

After voting is completed, election officials seal the ballots in secure containers, noting the number of the seal and, often, other details such as the time and who is handling it. Depending on local rules, officials keep track of who is moving ballots, where they are going, what time they arrive, who is tabulating them, and so on. After ballots are tallied, witnesses sign paperwork to attest that the count was done properly. Any discrepancies between the number of ballots issued and the number counted? Documented. Any irregularities seen? Noted. Any errors at any step in the process? Recorded.

Once the ballots are all counted, election workers again seal them in secure containers, document the details thereof, and put the containers into storage. The warehouses where the ballots are stored are typically controlled by a small number of local officials who hold on to each piece of documentation for as long as is required by state and federal law.

Who is responsible for maintaining the chain of custody?

Importantly, almost nothing in the chain of custody involves one person working alone. Ballots are typically handled by groups of election officials working together, for instance. In many places, forms demand signatures from multiple people.

“Nearly every single thing we do in the election world is done in teams of two at minimum,” Barton said. “You’re not only documenting, but you have someone else who’s affirming it.”

Many states require such paperwork to be signed by two people from opposing political parties to add additional strength to such attestations. It’s one of Barton’s favorite things about elections, she said — that, even in an increasingly polarized nation, elections are an opportunity for people from both major parties to come together and sign off on the election.

Why does the chain of custody matter?

Keeping tabs on where ballots are at every step in the process ensures the integrity of an election from start to finish. It also helps the public feel more confident in the election result.

“It’s critical both to make sure that every eligible vote is counted and also to make sure that nothing interferes with, whether intentional or accidental, the security of the vote,” said Kathy Boockvar, president of Athena Strategies and formerly the top election official in Pennsylvania.

Maintaining the chain of custody is important for ensuring that no one is able to tamper with the ballots or any of the machinery, giving voters more than just blind trust that the election was secure.

“What we want to do is have as many checks on the process, as many eyes on the process, through different stages before certification,” Boockvar said. “Those layers of checks and reconciliations and confirmation that you know the numbers match to the extent possible — all those steps help strengthen the process and should give confidence to voters.”

Maintaining a strict chain of custody also helps with auditing election results, if needed. Officials going back to double-check ballots after the election — for recounts, for example — can find exactly what they’re looking for based on the documentation and know who was tasked with what at every step.

What if the chain of custody breaks?

Officials agree that breaks in the chain of custody are typically rare, but they do happen. Elections are run by humans, Boockvar noted, and humans sometimes make mistakes.

There are a variety of ways the chain can break. In one Michigan city, for instance, the chain of custody for 37 ballots was broken when non-election officials walked into the office where voted ballots were. In Maine, a number of ballots were mistakenly delivered in September to a private residence instead of to city officials. Mislaid paperwork can cause problems, as can car accidents or simple human forgetfulness.

It’s impossible to avoid every single problem, but best practices generally recommend adding documentation “at multiple points” during tabulation, as the EAC noted in its 2021 chain of custody report. That way, if there are problems, they can be caught more quickly and election officials can explain them and act accordingly. In Boockvar’s words, “it’s important as a means to track sources of error, help identify ramifications, and target resolution.”

When the chain of custody is not maintained, voters can be disenfranchised through no fault of their own. In the Michigan example, for instance, those 37 ballots were not included in the certified election results.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Election officials say trust with CISA is broken — and may not come back

2026-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

When the U.S. Department of Homeland Security first declared in January 2017 that election systems were “critical infrastructure,” alarmed state election officials pushed back quickly and loudly, fearing the move could lead to a federal takeover of elections.

DHS’s designation came during the final days of the Obama administration, as federal officials scrambled to respond to evidence of Russian interference with the 2016 election.

Denise Merrill, a Connecticut Democrat who was then president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, helped lead the opposition.

“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has no authority to interfere with elections, even in the name of national security,” NASS said in a February 2017 bipartisan resolution urging the new administration to rescind the designation.

But the designation stuck and, Merrill said, something unexpected happened. As President Donald Trump’s first term progressed, states began to buy in. The designation elevated elections into a national security category that brought federal cybersecurity resources and intelligence sharing on threats. It also meant closer coordination between agencies, states, and the federal government that states couldn’t replicate on their own.

Officials at DHS’s cyber arm, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, created in 2018, emphasized that states remained in control, and over time, election officials came to trust the partnership enough not only to accept help, but to defend it publicly.

Now, Merrill and others say, that trust is gone — perhaps for good.

Election officials, private election vendors, and security experts describe a dual breakdown: renewed alarm that the Trump administration is seeking tighter federal control over elections, and a simultaneous retreat by CISA from the hands-on support states had come to depend on.

“It took us years,” she said in a recent interview with Votebeat. “It’s like so many things that are being torn down — it will take us generations to replace it, if at all.”

With federal support receding, states are improvising. A coordinated national communication system once run through CISA has been replaced by a patchwork of informal phone calls, email lists, and association meetings. Some information still flows through a nonprofit tied to the critical infrastructure designation, but only for election offices and associations that pay for membership.

Election offices in places like California have turned to state agencies for cybersecurity and other services, trading CISA’s standardized approach for looser, less uniform processes. In some states, like Pennsylvania, budgets have been stretched to pay for scans and assessments from private companies or nonprofits; in others, gaps remain.

In an email, a CISA spokesman said that CISA has now “refocused on its core mission” and continues to provide “the most capable and timely threat intelligence, expertise and resources” election officials need. The spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked which services the agency still provides.

“Any claims that CISA is not communicating with our state and local partners is false,” said the spokesperson. “However, CISA will not be functioning the way it was during the Biden Administration when it was performing duties outside of its statutory authority – to include electioneering and censorship.”

‘Critical infrastructure’: From backlash to buy-in

The backlash to the “critical infrastructure” designation in 2017 was bipartisan and swift. NASS warned that it was “legally and historically unprecedented” and raised concerns about federal authority and control. State officials worried the designation could open the door to new mandates, reporting requirements, or federal involvement in polling place security.

A document from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission cataloged dozens of unresolved questions from election administrators nationwide, including whether DHS would have a greater role in administering elections or dictating physical security standards.

DHS and CISA officials tried to calm the fears. Chris Krebs, CISA’s first director, and Matt Masterson, then the agency’s top election security official, emphasized that the federal role would be voluntary, responsive, and driven by state needs.

CISA showed up — repeatedly — at conferences, trainings, and briefings, positioning itself as a convener rather than a regulator. It brought private companies like Microsoft and Facebook directly to election officials to share intelligence about foreign interference. It offered cybersecurity scans, simulations to game out responses to potential threats, and physical security assessments, all on request.

Matt Crane, now executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, was the clerk in Arapahoe County when DHS first adopted the critical infrastructure designation for elections. He said he was initially concerned that CISA would go too far. What won him over, he said, were the boundaries Krebs and Masterson set.

“They did a great job drawing clear lines in the sand,” Crane said. By the time his term ended, his views had shifted so dramatically that he went to work for CISA as a contractor, helping counties access its services.

By late 2018, participation in federal election security programs had grown rapidly. All 50 states joined the Election Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or EI-ISAC, and CISA became embedded in election planning nationwide.

A state-federal partnership unravels

That model appears to have broken down.

Weeks into Trump’s second term, NASS warned his homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, that the federal election security partnership built since 2017 was unraveling, and highlighting the role played by federal support for the EI-ISAC, which the group said, helps election officials defend against “sophisticated cyber threat actors including nation-state and cybercriminal groups.”

ISACs are voluntary information-sharing groups within each area designated as critical infrastructure that are meant to help organizations spot and respond to security threats. The elections version was created after the 2017 designation and is run by the nonprofit Center for Internet Security to support election offices specifically, while the Multi-State ISAC, also managed by the group, serves state and local governments more broadly.

Weeks after NASS’s letter, CISA halted roughly $10 million in annual funding for the two information-sharing groups, citing a need to focus on “mission critical areas.” State officials and vendors warned the move would weaken information sharing on threats and slow coordinated responses to cyber and physical threats.

Election technology companies have since begun pulling back from sharing sensitive information with CISA. Votebeat spoke to three technology companies that confirmed this, though none would speak publicly for fear of reprisal. Some fear data on vulnerabilities could be exposed or used against them in a more politicized environment — concerns that echo, but invert, those raised in 2017.

“If you share information, you don’t know if it’s going to stay confidential,” Crane said. “Why would a vendor ever share a vulnerability?”

Gabriel Sterling, the former chief operating officer of Georgia’s secretary of state office and now a Republican candidate for the job, said he has long been skeptical of CISA — particularly its approach to disclosing vulnerabilities.

Even so, Sterling draws a sharp distinction between the current moment and the Krebs-Masterson era. “They focused on what they could do well and how they could make systems more resilient,” he said. “Now, I have no idea what the goal is. I don’t think anyone really understands the mission. I don’t think they even understand the mission.”

The uncertainty has been compounded by a leadership vacuum at CISA. Nearly a year into Trump’s second term, the agency still lacks a Senate-confirmed director after the nomination of Sean Plankey, a longtime security official who has worked at the Department of Energy and the National Security Council, stalled amid bipartisan objections. Trump this week renominated Plankey.

Trump has continued to attack the agency’s past work. He has repeatedly attacked Krebs, the former director, for defending the integrity of the 2020 election, which Trump falsely claims to have won. In early 2025, Trump ordered an investigation into Krebs and the security firm he now owns, apparent retribution for Krebs’ statement that the 2020 election was the “most secure” in U.S. history.

Republicans have also spent years criticizing CISA over its work against election misinformation, arguing the agency overstepped its role by coordinating with state and local officials and social media companies.

This has unfolded alongside a broader shift in how the second Trump administration is approaching elections, said Merrill, who left office in 2022. Justice Department efforts to require states to send full, unredacted voter lists to the federal government — something many states have now done — are, she said, a warning sign that federal involvement in how states run elections could expand far beyond technical support.

“I don’t know how you would ever go back to the federal government just helping states with security — which is obviously a very positive thing to do,” she said.

Looking toward the midterms

The November 2025 elections offered an early glimpse of what this new landscape looks like. For the first time in years, CISA did not stand up its Election Day situation room — a centralized hub for monitoring and communicating about threats nationwide.

In December, Gene Dodaro, departing comptroller general of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, warned senators that federal cybersecurity efforts were not receiving enough attention given the potential threat. He expressed concern that CISA can’t provide the assistance state and local election officials had come to expect heading into the midterms.

Paul Lux, chair of EI-ISAC and the supervisor of elections in Okaloosa County, Florida, told Votebeat that a now-membership-based EI-ISAC, run by the nonprofit Center for Internet Security, is working to rebuild communication infrastructure, and hopes to make arrangements with smaller jurisdictions that cannot afford the fees.

It plans to restart the situation room for this year’s primaries using private vendors, “making sure all the nuts and bolts are tightened” before Election Day in November, said Lux.

Some cooperation with the federal government will likely persist, albeit in narrower forms. Ryan Macias, an election security expert who has also contracted for CISA, said that if CISA were to again offer direct services, states could engage selectively — allowing isolated cyber scans or physical security assessments without broadly sharing sensitive vulnerabilities, which would be more like what other critical infrastructure sectors currently do.

Many jurisdictions, he noted, also benefited from years of basic cybersecurity hygiene training and can carry that forward on their own. In Georgia, for example, Sterling said much of the state’s scanning and assessment work flows through the Georgia Emergency Management Agency rather than CISA.

Lux said he believes the federal government is needed, and that another federal agency — one with a more independent leadership body, like the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which has a bipartisan set of commissioners nominated by congressional leadership — might have more success.

Local and state offices, he said, can’t “be expected to battle malicious foreign actors without the resources and assistance of the federal government.”

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Postmarks, interference, physical threats: Election officials brace for the 2026 elections

2026-01-12T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Election officials from around the country gathered at a conference in Virginia this week, giving us — and one another — a chance to hear what they’re thinking and worrying about as they plan for the midterm elections this year.

One of their most pressing concerns: the mail.

Updated guidance from the U.S. Postal Service about how it processes mail and when postmarks are applied has sparked widespread concern in recent weeks about whether more mail ballots will be at risk of ultimately not being counted.

Fourteen states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands count mail ballots received within a certain period after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. In a notice in the Federal Register that took effect Dec. 24, the Postal Service announced that it may not postmark a piece of mail on the same day that it takes possession of it, which could affect ballots dropped in mailboxes on Election Day, for instance.

Speaking at the conference, which was organized by the Election Center, a nonprofit association of election officials, U.S. Postmaster General David Steiner acknowledged the new regulation had sparked “a lot of confusion,” and said it was meant to clarify existing postmarking practices.

Adjustments to the Postal Service’s transportation operations mean that some mail won’t arrive at a processing facility on the same day it’s mailed, according to an agency fact sheet. That means postmarks applied at the processing facility may not match the date the mail was given to a letter carrier or dropped off, the agency said, which is what’s raising concerns about whether some ballots mailed by the deadline could still not get counted.

Earlier in his career, Steiner was a tax accountant, he told the gathering, “and anyone that ever practiced tax accounting knows that there’s only one way to make sure that that tax return that has to be postmarked by April 15 is actually postmarked on April 15”: lining up at the post office and requesting a manual postmark.

Steiner urged the election officials in attendance to inform voters that they can request manual postmarks at post offices with a date that reflects when the ballot was mailed. He promised that the agency would continue to take steps to prioritize the timely delivery of election mail, but said voters need to mail ballots at least a week before the receipt deadline. “We want to make sure that every ballot is delivered, and mailing early is a big part of that,” he said.

Election officials in recent years have repeatedly voiced frustrations with mail delays and urged voters to cast their ballots earlier, so the current questions aren’t entirely new.

But they’re occurring now against a backdrop of rising concern over the federal government’s role in elections, and especially President Donald Trump’s repeated attacks on mail ballots. Trump has suggested he might attempt to curb their use through an executive order.

If Trump, or any president, issues such an executive order, “have you gamed out what you’ll do?” Judd Choate, Colorado’s state elections director, asked a panel of postal officials following Steiner’s address. Colorado is one of several states where people vote primarily by mail.

Panelist Adrienne Marshall acknowledged she was asked the same question at a different event over the summer.

“Of course, by the Constitution … we are required to deliver the nation’s mail,” she noted.

Marshall said that, without her legal team there, she was “not sure” how exactly her agency would respond to a theoretical executive order, but said she believes any executive order on mail ballots would likely be aimed more at election officials than the Postal Service.

The Colorado Department of State said it’s prepared for various scenarios that might affect the 2026 election cycle, but a spokesman wouldn’t comment on specifics.

Another session at the conference aimed to prepare election officials for potential election interference, covering a range of scenarios from how to handle Justice Department and congressional observers to the implications of placing polling sites or ballot drop boxes on federal property.

At a session with an FBI representative, election officials raised questions about the threats against them and election workers, a constant refrain since the 2020 presidential election.

And at a session with two members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Vice Chair Thomas Hicks, a Democrat, told election officials to take every opportunity to educate members of Congress about election needs. He noted that two long-serving members of Congress who were instrumental in passing the landmark Help America Vote Act of 2002 — Rep. Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, and Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican — are retiring after this year, leaving what he described as “a huge, huge void, and that’s a bipartisan void.”

Election officials’ list of worries, in other words, remains long.

Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.

Hamtramck’s 37 mishandled ballots shouldn’t be counted, judge rules

2025-12-23T23:14:23+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

A judge ruled Tuesday that 37 untabulated ballots in Hamtramck’s disputed municipal election should not be counted, affirming Adam Alharbi’s controversial and narrow victory in the race for mayor.

However, the decision is likely only the starting gun for a legal race against the clock before the city’s new mayor is sworn in at the beginning of January.

In her written decision Tuesday, Judge Patricia Perez Fresard of the Third Judicial Circuit of Michigan said that the Wayne County Board of Canvassers “exercised its discretion” when declining to count the 37 ballots after the city clerk “failed to comply with mandatory requirements imposed to protect the integrity of ballots.”

Fresard had initially ordered the parties to meet to see if they could come to a resolution. That failed, attorneys said, leading to just over 20 minutes of courtroom debate Tuesday, primarily between lawyers for Alharbi and his opponent in the mayoral race, City Council member Muhith Mahmood, who finished 11 votes behind.

Mark Brewer, representing Mahmood as well as the 37 disenfranchised voters, said that to not count the votes would be to violate a number of election-related constitutional protections. Nabih Ayad, representing Alharbi, argued that there was “absolutely no viable path” to count the ballots, and that doing so would effectively disenfranchise other voters.

“The arguments of both counsel are that the court should protect voter rights,” Fresard said Tuesday morning at the end of the hearing. “In some circumstances, it’s very difficult to protect the rights of every single individual voter.”

The dispute has brought weeks of uncertainty to Hamtramck and its nearly 28,000 residents. It all started when, due to human error, 37 absentee ballots were left in their envelopes and went uncounted on election night. Election officials discovered them a few days later and immediately delivered them to Wayne County officials.

But at some point between the end of election night and when the ballots were discovered, a number of unauthorized city officials had walked into the office where the ballots had been, breaking the chain of custody. That led county officials to question whether they should be counted, and the Wayne County Board of Canvassers ultimately deadlocked on whether to include them in the final tally. That meant that the ballots would not be counted, and Alharbi was certified as the winner by just six votes; a recount later determined his actual winning margin was 11 votes.

Mahmood then sued to have the 37 mishandled ballots counted. Brewer argued Tuesday that, otherwise, the 37 unnamed voters’ constitutional right to vote was being invalidated.

“Plaintiffs have no other remedy, other than to have their votes counted, as is their right,” he told the court. Allowing those voters to cast a new ballot would also be sufficient, he said.

But Fresard disagreed. Michigan law “does not support … that the City had a clear legal duty to tabulate the 37 votes,” she wrote. State law requires absentee votes to be tabulated according to the law, she wrote, but the board has the discretion to not count ballots it has questions about.

Brewer, in an email before the decision came down Tuesday, said he would be appealing “immediately” to the Michigan Court of Appeals “and on to the Michigan Supreme Court if necessary.”

Tuesday evening, he confirmed they had already appealed.

Hamtramck has been embroiled in election-related scandals for much of 2025. City Clerk Rana Faraj was put on leave shortly after the election, which Amer Ghalib, the city’s outgoing mayor, said was partially because her office mishandled the 37 ballots. Earlier this month, Faraj sued the city and several of its officials, alleging she was being retaliated against for reporting election fraud.

Two City Council members were charged in August with forging signatures on absentee ballots during the 2023 council race. Four others, including two other council members and an incoming council member, were named in an April document from Attorney General Dana Nessel seeking a special prosecutor for the case. No one else has been charged.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

After 2024 incident, Maricopa County examines hiring process for temporary election workers

2025-12-22T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

A search of Walter Alphonso Jamel Ringfield Jr.’s last name on the Maricopa County Superior Court website in May 2024 should have revealed he had been charged with theft eight months earlier.

But a Maricopa County vendor conducting background checks on hundreds of temporary election workers searched his name as “Jamel Ringfield, Walter Alphonso” according to his county employee file, which was included in a Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office investigative report obtained by Votebeat through a public records request.

The report shows no records were found with that version of his name.

Ringfield, now 29, was hired. He was employed for fewer than 30 days in June 2024 when a surveillance camera captured him swiping a security fob used to access ballot tabulation machines and keys from a work station in the tabulation room of the Maricopa County Elections Department, according to the report and what officials said at the time.

Officials reported the theft to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, which investigated. On March 5, Ringfield pleaded guilty to attempted computer tampering, and a Superior Court judge sentenced him to three years of probation and six months in jail, according to court documents. He has since been released, records show. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Since the incident, the county has faced questions about how it screens temporary election workers. It included a review of hiring practices of temporary employees as part of a comprehensive audit of its election processes that is underway.

Jason Berry, Maricopa County director of communications, in a Nov. 21 email said the county is limited in the information it can provide about a human resources matter. But “the name used for Mr. Ringfield’s background check did not match the court’s database and, therefore, did not produce his court-ordered diversion record,” Berry said. “We’ve had extensive conversations with our background check vendor and have identified steps to prevent this anomaly from happening again.”

Berry said he could not elaborate on those specific steps, though he did confirm that since April, the county has required two reference checks for every temporary employee who works in the ballot tabulation center. In a subsequent email, he said the name was searched as Ringfield had provided it, and “that information is used to run the criminal background check.”

AccuSourceHR said in an emailed statement that it had “reviewed the background screening process for this individual and determined proper procedures were followed and no error was made in the processing of this report.” A representative for the company did not respond to follow-up questions.

Maricopa County needs thousands of temporary workers for elections

Every two years, Maricopa County hires 3,000 to 4,000 temporary employees to help with the primary and general elections, most of whom are poll workers, but 500 to 600 work inside the Tabulation and Election Center, Elections Department spokeswoman Jennifer Liewer said.

There are an assortment of temporary jobs such as working in the mailroom, operating tabulation machines, warehouse drivers, technology technicians, ballot couriers, and serving on bipartisan teams to adjudicate ballots the tabulator could not read.

Many of the temporary employees have returned for years, and temps can eventually gain permanent employment with elections or other county departments, Liewer said.

Each of these temporary employees undergoes a background check.

AccuSourceHR’s one-page report on Ringfield, included with the investigative report from the sheriff’s office, shows the vendor did a county criminal records search and a state criminal court search on the name “Jamel Ringfield, Walter Alphonso,” and also under a second name, Alphonso Sundevil, as well as by date of birth.

The results of all the searches were “No Reportable Records Found,” according to the report.

According to court records, Ringfield was a cashier at a grocery store chain when he stole $1,800 from his drawer on Sept. 30, 2023.

Ringfield’s county employee file does not list that employer, but it says he was self-employed beginning May 1, 2022, and his responsibilities and accomplishments in that time were “Getting a job.”

The Maricopa County Superior Court docket shows prosecutors filed the theft charge against Ringfield on Oct. 3, 2023, and the prosecution was suspended about five weeks later so Ringfield could enter a two-year diversion program, and he was not convicted at that time.

Ringfield’s court record would not have automatically disqualified him from county employment if the county had known about it. Maricopa County is a “second chance employer,” so it is up to department heads to decide whether to hire on a case-by-case basis, Berry said.

County elections audit will examine hiring and training of temporary employees

Liewer said the Elections Department must strike a balance between the need for election security and being properly staffed.

“How do you achieve both of those goals is one of the things we’re constantly striving to improve and reach with every election that we do,” Liewer said in an October interview.

Liewer said the department doesn’t allow any temporary worker to be in the tabulation room, which is under constant surveillance, without a full-time staff member.

The comprehensive elections audit, by the firm BerryDunn, is also supposed to look at the hiring and training of temporary employees, according to the request for proposal and a June 25 press release. The press release said the review will examine the processes for chain of custody, physical security, candidate filing compliance, ballot drop boxes, and vote center selection and setup.

BerryDunn has a one-year contract, and the county expects to have some findings to share next year, Berry said.

Contact Votebeat at az.tips@votebeat.org.

U.S. Justice Department sues WEC for not providing unredacted voter list

2025-12-18T22:42:28+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued the Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday after it refused to turn over the state’s unredacted voter list.

The Justice Department has said it is asking every state for its unredacted voter lists — versions of the voter rolls that contain personally identifying information such as voters’ full birthdates, full or partial Social Security numbers, and driver’s license information.

The Justice Department has so far sued 21 of the states, along with Washington, D.C., that have declined to turn over the lists, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which is tracking the lawsuits.

“States need to give us this information, so we can do our duty to protect American citizens from vote dilution,” Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement, referring to the federal government’s ongoing efforts to find noncitizens on the voter rolls.

In that statement, the DOJ announced that three more states — Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee — agreed to provide the federal government with their full voter lists, joining Indiana and Wyoming.

The lawsuit alleges the election commission and Meagan Wolfe, its administrator, are violating the Civil Rights Act’s requirement for states to turn over certain voting records to the DOJ upon the attorney general’s request.

WEC met on Dec. 11 in response to the federal government’s request for the state’s data, ultimately voting not to provide it. Election officials nationwide, including WEC appointees, have said that providing that information would violate state law.

The Justice Department has said it is entitled to it under federal law, and withholding the data interferes with its ability to exercise oversight and enforce federal election laws.

In a letter WEC sent to the Justice Department Dec. 11 after voting against providing the unredacted voter rolls, election commissioners pointed to a state law that explicitly bans election officials from disclosing information like driver’s license numbers to most people who aren’t election officials.

The commissioners also pointed out that one of the laws that the federal government cited in its request — the National Voter Registration Act — doesn’t apply to Wisconsin, one of six states exempt from it. The letter further argues that the other federal laws that the federal government cited don’t justify the request for confidential voter information.

The lawsuit, unlike the DOJ’s letter to Wisconsin, doesn’t cite the NVRA, solely asking the court to find the refusal to release the list is a Civil Rights Act violation and require the state to release it.

Officials in both Republican and Democratic states have pushed back on the DOJ’s request for unredacted voter data, saying it could put voters at risk. They also say the DOJ hasn’t provided enough information on how the data would be used.

Dhillon said on a podcast that the states were withholding that information because states are embarrassed that their voter rolls were not sufficiently cleared of inactive or unlawful registrants.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Wisconsin Elections Commission refuses to send Justice Department unredacted voter list

2025-12-12T00:10:17+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday declined to send the state’s unredacted voter rolls to the federal government, joining more than a dozen states pushing back against disclosing sensitive voter information.

The commission’s move comes as the U.S. Department of Justice has asked all 50 states for their voter files — massive lists containing significant personal information on every voter in the country — claiming they are central to its mission of enforcing election law.

“The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something that the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do,” said Don Millis, a Republican appointee on the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “There’s a clear consensus that personally identifiable information is to be protected.”

While pieces of these lists are public, election officials typically redact voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license information, and dates of birth before issuing them in response to records requests. The DOJ, in many cases, has asked for information not traditionally made public. That was also the case in Wisconsin: The DOJ requested voters’ partial Social Security numbers, license numbers, and dates of birth.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission — which is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans — ultimately voted in closed session to send the DOJ a letter declining the request for unredacted voter information. Republican commissioner Bob Spindell appeared to be the only member in favor of cooperating with the federal government and said Wisconsin will likely face a lawsuit as a result of the commission’s choice.

The letter, signed by every commissioner except Spindell, says state law “explicitly prohibits” sending the unredacted voter list.

Officials in both Democratic and Republican states have pushed back on disclosing their voter rolls in response to these requests. On a podcast with conservative talk radio host Joe Pags, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said these states were refusing to cooperate because they were embarrassed that their voter rolls were not sufficiently cleared of inactive or unlawful registrants.

Rather, many states, like Colorado, have said the federal government isn’t entitled to unredacted voter information that could put voters at risk. The DOJ, they say, has not provided sufficient explanation for how the data will be used.

In early December, after receiving a memorandum of understanding similar to the one sent to Wisconsin, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told the DOJ to “take a hike,” adding that she “will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections.” The DOJ sued Griswold just over a week later.

All 50 states were asked to turn over their voting rolls, Dhillon said on the podcast: Four states have voluntarily cooperated, 12 are in negotiations, and 14 have been sued by the DOJ over their refusal.

Wisconsin election officials have repeatedly said that federal officials can obtain the publicly available, and therefore redacted, voter roll the same way anybody else can: by purchasing it available online for $12,500.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Man accused of double voting in 2020 election says Trump pardon applies to him

2025-11-25T18:10:36+00:00

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UPDATE Dec. 1: On Friday, federal prosecutors responded to the motion, arguing the president’s pardon did not apply to Laiss’ case and urging the judge to dismiss his motion. This story has been updated with information from that filing.

A man charged with voting twice in the 2020 election has adopted a novel legal argument: that he’s covered by the pardon that President Donald Trump granted to allies who attempted to reverse his 2020 election loss.

Federal prosecutors charged Matthew Laiss in September with double voting in the November 2020 election. The U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleged that Laiss moved from Pennsylvania to Florida in August of that year and voted both in person in Florida and via mail ballot in Bucks County. Both votes were allegedly for Trump.

Early this month, Trump issued a pardon to 77 people, including members of his legal team and the so-called fake electors, for their conduct in connection with the 2020 election. However, the pardon proclamation was written broadly, saying in part that Trump was granting “a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to all United States citizens” for conduct related to the 2020 election.

Laiss’ attorney argued in a motion to dismiss filed last week that the “plain language” of the pardon meant it extended to Laiss.

Beyond that, the motion cited “the unequivocal absurdity of the notion that individuals like John Eastman, Rudolph Giuliani, Mark Meadows, and Sidney Powell … are explicitly pardoned for their exponentially more egregious alleged conduct, while a then-26-year-old man who cast two votes for President Trump in the general election is not.”

“To read the Pardon Proclamation to intend such an outcome would be outrageous, particularly in light of its sweeping language,” Laiss’ attorney argued.

A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney declined to comment. The White House Press office did not respond to a request for comment.

In a Nov. 28 filing, prosecutors urged the judge to dismiss the motion, arguing the pardon was not intended to apply to Laiss. It said it had consulted with the Office of the Pardon Attorney and could “explicitly confirm” that “in the view of the executive branch, Laiss is not covered by President Trump’s November 7 pardon proclamation.”

One of the arguments the U.S. attorney’s office made was that the pardon was targeted at activity that occurred after Election Day, whereas Laiss’ alleged crime occurred on or before Election Day.

Legal scholars warned when Trump issued the pardon that the broad language could have unintended consequences for the administration.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in California and a former Justice Department official, said he wasn’t surprised to see a defendant making this argument.

The pardon was so broad and poorly written, Levitt argued, that it could conceivably apply not just to the allies Trump intended to pardon, but also to people accused of voting illegally in 2020, like Laiss, and to election officials Trump has implied should face prosecution for “cheating.”

The caveat is that the pardon applies only to federal crimes, and election-related crimes are generally prosecuted at the state or local level.

There are other federal cases that may be covered by the pardon. Earlier this year, a Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, man pleaded guilty to multiple counts of election law offenses, one of which occurred during the 2020 election.

Derek Muller, an election law professor at Notre Dame Law School who first noted Laiss’ motion on the Election Law Blog, said it makes sense that Trump issued a broadly worded pardon, given that his allies’ conduct in 2020 and early 2021 spanned a long time frame, crossed multiple states, and involved many individuals. Typically, pardons are tailored to specific people or circumstances.

Even when former President Joe Biden issued broadly worded pardons to his son and members of Congress who served on the committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Muller said, he narrowly tailored the pardons to specific people.

Trump’s pardon “does name individuals, but it does speak to anyone, and it also speaks to a wide range of conduct,” Muller said. “It’s a little sloppier language. With that broad of language, it allows for unintended consequences.”

The U.S. attorney’s office has until Friday to respond to the motion. Ultimately, it will be up to the judge in the case to decide if the pardon applies, Muller said.

Correction, Nov. 25: A previous version of this story misstated the other cases this pardon may apply to. It only applies to citizens, not noncitizens.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Republicans want ‘comprehensive oversight’ of Michigan’s 2026 election. What does that mean?

2025-11-21T21:59:30+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

In a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi last week, Michigan Republicans asked the federal government to provide “comprehensive oversight” of the state’s 2026 election.

But the letter doesn’t specify what “comprehensive oversight” means. And it’s not clear that the people who signed the letter agree on the meaning either.

A total of 22 Republican state legislators from both the Senate and the House signed on to the letter, including Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, Sen. Ruth Johnson — a former Michigan secretary of state — and Rep. Rachelle Smit, who leads the House Election Integrity Committee.

The letter asks the U.S. Justice Department to “deploy official election monitors and provide comprehensive oversight for Michigan’s 2026 primary and general elections.” It cites a number of concerns about Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s administration of the election, from the fact that she is running for governor in the 2026 election to her alleged violations of election law.

It is not unusual for secretaries of state to oversee elections they are candidates in. Benson ran the 2022 election that won her a second term, for instance, and Johnson oversaw two separate elections as secretary in which she was also on the ballot. In Michigan, while the secretary of state sets rules and regulations, it is local clerks who typically work with voters more directly, creating a layer of separation between the state’s highest election official and the voters who may or may not be supporting them.

It’s not clear if the Justice Department will take the matter on, but Johnson told Votebeat on Thursday that department officials were already meeting on the request. She said she didn’t know who specifically was involved, and a spokesperson for the department did not respond to a request for comment.

Nebulous views of ‘oversight’

The first part of the Republicans’ request — federal election monitors — isn’t unusual. Monitors watch polling places and vote-counting centers to ensure workers are following processes appropriately. Under President Joe Biden, the Justice Department sent monitors to 27 states in the 2024 general election, including Michigan, and sent monitors for Michigan’s primary election as well. Under President Donald Trump, it sent monitors to California and New Jersey earlier this month after similar requests from members of the GOP in both states, but those monitors were uninvasive and may not have visited certain jurisdictions at all.

“Comprehensive oversight,” though, is a more abstract idea.

To Johnson, oversight in 2026 would be “something that has to be worked out, because you always have to balance everything.” In an interview with Votebeat, she did not go into specifics about what type of intervention she might welcome in Michigan, although she offered one example of something she hopes federal involvement could accomplish: ensuring people don’t vote twice.

That’s already rare in Michigan. Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, pursued charges against several people in an investigation of double voting last year. Charges were dropped against most, while one was sentenced to probation this year.

But a 2022 statewide audit found that, out of more than 11.7 million votes cast from May 2019 to March 2021, 99.99% were not duplicate votes.

Nesbitt didn’t offer much detail about what federal oversight could look like, either.

“We aren’t leaving any options off the table,” he said in an emailed statement. “The level of federal intervention in Michigan’s election is going to depend entirely on Jocelyn Benson’s willingness to cooperate with the DOJ and follow the law. I’m confident the DOJ will do whatever is necessary to ensure our next election is free of any manipulation.”

Nesbitt said that Benson “should welcome DOJ oversight” if elections are as secure as she claims. Johnson, meanwhile, said she would primarily like to see oversight from someone independent.

Johnson argued that circumstances are different from when she was secretary of state and administering elections in 2014 and 2018. “I was nonpartisan in every single way,” she said. “I got in trouble with some people in my own party because of it.” Benson, she said, has not been the same.

The Michigan Department of State argues that isn’t true. Elections in Michigan “are among the most transparent, secure and accessible in the nation,” Angela Benander, a spokesperson for MDOS, said after the letter was released last week.

“Next year’s election will be no different,” Benander continued. “Yet by pouring gasoline on our democracy and asking the DOJ to light a match, these lawmakers ignore these truths. They instead use dangerous, false rhetoric to encourage President Trump to illegally interfere in our state’s ability to hold fair and free elections.”

Federal intervention has few precedents

Experts say the federal government’s ability to intervene in elections is limited. The Constitution is very clear, for example, that states get to establish “the times, places and manner” of elections.

Historically, when the federal government has gotten involved in elections, it has usually been through legislation. During Reconstruction, for instance, Congress passed a series of Enforcement Acts that made it a federal crime to interfere with elections. However, that was at a time when Ku Klux Klan members were using violence to prevent Black voters from casting ballots — a radically different circumstance than the ongoing lawsuits and alleged conflicts of interest Benson faces today.

The timing of the letter is also unusual, said David Becker, an election lawyer who worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and now leads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research — the general election is nearly a full year away.

“I don’t know of a single instance in all of DOJ history where a jurisdiction that wasn’t previously monitored had monitors assigned more than a few weeks before,” he said.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

‘Cured’ ballots push Hamtramck, Michigan, mayoral election to a photo finish

2025-11-18T23:39:37+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Update, Nov. 21, 2025: Muhith Mahmood, the candidate who lost the Hamtramck mayoral election by six votes, has requested a recount. The Wayne County Clerk’s Office staff will recount the city’s more than 4,600 ballots by hand.

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers certified Adam Alharbi as the winner of Hamtramck’s mayoral election, after a turbulent post-election review that included a rejected batch of absentee ballots and an unusually high number of “cured” ballots.

Going into Tuesday’s canvassing meeting, Alharbi led City Council member Muhith Mahmood by 11 votes in unofficial results. After the board added 120 cured ballots to those totals, Alharbi won the official tally by only six votes — raising questions about whether the 37 ballots that were disallowed on Friday due to security concerns could have changed the outcome.

Cured ballots are absentee ballots that weren’t counted originally because either the signature on the envelope was missing or it did not match the signature on file. In these cases, the clerk’s office reaches out to the voter and gives them until the Friday after the election to correct it so their ballot can be counted. The 120 ballots that were cured in Hamtramck in this year’s election was an unusually high number; Detroit, which has more than 20 times the population, had only 72 cured ballots. It’s unclear why Hamtramck had so many cured ballots.

The canvas finalizes yet another controversial election in Hamtramck, a city of roughly 28,000 surrounded primarily by Detroit, but it’s likely not over yet. Recounts can be requested within 48 hours of the end of a canvass. Mahmood declined to comment Tuesday on whether he would request a recount. His attorney, Mark Brewer, said he would need to speak to his client.

Greg Mahar, Wayne County’s director of elections, noted Tuesday during the canvassers meeting that four of the city’s five absentee precincts did not balance, meaning the number of ballots tallied in the initial count did not match the number of ballots recorded on the voter rolls as having been cast. That’s unusual: 99% of early and Election Day ballots outside of Detroit either were balanced or explained, Mahar said.

Lisa Capatina, chair of the board, told the crowded meeting room Tuesday that the attorney general’s and secretary of state’s offices “are aware” of the concerns people had around the election.

Those concerns include the disenfranchisement of 37 absentee voters whose ballots were mistakenly left on a desk in the clerk’s office on election night. Three city officials entered the office late that night while the ballots were sitting out, breaking the chain of custody for those ballots, officials argued. Maintaining the chain of custody is a critical safeguard for a fair election, as it ensures that ballots have not been tampered with.

Hamtramck City Clerk Rana Faraj has also been on leave since Nov. 10, a move she said was for her own safety, although it’s not clear what that meant. Other city officials have not provided additional information. She was not back in her office Tuesday.

Other recent elections in Hamtramck have also been marred by controversy. Six people, including four council members, were named in a petition from Attorney General Dana Nessel as allegedly having assisted in election crimes during the city’s last local election in 2023.

The petition alleged those council members — Mohammed Hassan, Muhtasin Sadman, Mohammed Alsomiri, and Abu Musa — and two others conspired to collect unvoted absentee ballots from newly naturalized citizens and fill them out with their chosen candidates.

Hassan and Sadman were charged with felonies in August, although Sadman’s felony charges were later dropped after subpoenaed witnesses did not appear in court. Sadman still faces a misdemeanor charge and is set for a pretrial hearing next month; Hassan is set to face a jury in April, according to court records. No one else has been charged.

Musa and Nayeem Choudhury, one of the others named in Nessel’s petition, both won seats on the council in the 2025 election, as confirmed Tuesday by the finalized canvas. Musa’s victory came despite new accusations of wrongdoing. Just before the August primary, footage from surveillance cameras appeared to show Musa allegedly handing a driver bundles of ballots to place into a city drop box. Michigan law allows only family members or those in the same household to return ballots for voters.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Arizona early-voter list would be abolished under proposed ballot measure

2025-11-18T23:18:48+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

A Republican state lawmaker who is also running for secretary of state has introduced a proposed ballot measure that would overhaul early voting in Arizona by eliminating the early-voter list, shortening the time to cast early ballots, and requiring proof of citizenship to receive an early ballot.

State Rep. Alex Kolodin, who as a lawmaker and a former lawyer for the Arizona Republican Party has pushed to abolish the state’s early-voter list, said in a press release that he’s pushing legislation to put the measure on the ballot because “Arizonans are tired of excuses and chaos on Election Day.”

Kolodin said in a statement that his proposal would improve identification standards and ensure timely election results. He did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Some provisions of his proposed measure are already in state law, including a poll closing time of 7 p.m. on Election Day and a voter ID requirement.

But others would eliminate a fixture of Arizona elections, the Active Early Voter List, which allows voters to sign up to receive a mail ballot automatically for each election they’re eligible for. Under Kolodin’s proposal, only voters who have provided proof of citizenship would get an early ballot, and they would have to ask for one every two years.

The early-voting list was already due for changes under a law passed in 2021. Starting in 2027, a voter will be removed from the list if they don’t cast their mail ballot for two consecutive general election cycles — a four-year period. That includes statewide general and primary elections, as well as local candidate elections.

Requiring requests every two years, as Kolodin proposes, “is a highly unpopular idea,” said Alex Gulotta, the Arizona director for nonprofit voting advocacy group All Voting is Local. “It’s counter to the way the people of Arizona have executed their right to vote, and if they put it on the ballot, voters are going to vote against it.”

Former Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a Republican, also questioned whether, under the proposal, voters would have to ask for a mail-in ballot just once every two years, or whether they would have to make separate requests for the primary and the general election.

“That would be a nightmare,” Bennett said. “I don’t know if they thought through that wording, but they better be careful.”

The proof-of-citizenship requirement could also raise a legal question.

Arizona voters in 2004 passed Proposition 200, which requires documentary proof of citizenship to vote.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Arizona could not require proof of citizenship for voters who register with a federal voter registration form that the state is required to accept, because the federal form did not require such proof. But the justices allowed the state to keep the requirement in place for voters who register with a state form, to vote in state and local elections. Voters who register using the federal form must be permitted to vote in elections for president and for Congress.

Bennett was in office when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013, and he made the decision to split Arizona’s voter rolls, creating a list of federal-only voters.

Earlier this year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voided many provisions of a 2022 Arizona law that added a proof-of-citizenship requirement for federal form applicants to vote by mail, as well as requiring proof of citizenship to vote in presidential elections.

Bennett said he sees other problems with Kolodin’s legislation.

For example, the legislation also proposes ending early voting no later than 7 p.m. on the Friday before Election Day. Bennett said that language should be adjusted to make sure not to invalidate any mail ballots that are returned to elections officials over the weekend or on Monday and Tuesday.

The legislation is a concurrent resolution, meaning it doesn’t require the governor’s approval and goes directly to voters on the November 2026 ballot if the Legislature approves it.

State Sen. Shawnna Bolick, a Phoenix Republican, introduced a mirror resolution in her chamber. Introducing duplicate legislation in each chamber allows it to move on a fast track. Bolick did not respond to a request through the Senate spokesperson for an interview.

Contact Votebeat at az.tips@votebeat.org.

Hamtramck batch of absentee ballots won’t be counted, disenfranchising 37 voters

2025-11-14T21:15:42+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

More than three dozen Hamtramck voters have been disenfranchised after three non-election officials walked into the city clerk’s sealed office on election night, compromising the security of absentee ballots that were mistakenly left there.

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers deadlocked Friday on whether to count the 37 ballots, which were discovered in that office the day after Election Day, having been opened but not removed from their envelopes. Because the board didn’t have a majority of votes in favor of counting them, the ballots will not be included in the final tallies of the election.

It’s not clear whether officials at any level are obligated to tell those 37 voters about the fate of their ballots. Greg Mahar, Wayne County’s director of elections, said he wasn’t aware of any requirements around that. State officials said they weren’t aware of any regulations on that either.

Those uncounted ballots could have been pivotal for the result of the closely contested, open-seat mayoral election in the city, which borders Detroit. According to unofficial results, engineer Adam Alharbi currently leads City Council member Muhith Mahmood in the race by only 11 votes.

At issue in the canvassing board’s deliberations was the ballots’ chain of custody, which must be maintained to ensure the results of the election are accurate and legitimate. Clerk’s offices are sealed around the time of elections, meaning only election officials come into and out of places where ballots are stored.

Due to what officials have said was human error by those who were counting absentee ballots on election night, the 37 ballots in question were opened but never counted. Upon noting a discrepancy in the numbers, election officials looked for the ballots, City Clerk Rana Faraj told the canvassers at their meeting Thursday, but did not find them until the next day. Those ballots were then sealed in a secure envelope and brought to the county.

But the clerk and her team later realized that three other city officials, including interim City Manager Alex Lagrou, walked into the office late on election night, Faraj said. That broke the chain of custody of those ballots, casting doubt onto whether they could be counted.

It’s uncertain why Lagrou and the other officials entered the office. Lagrou could not be reached for comment Friday. It’s not clear who the other non-election officials were.

Becki Carmargo, assistant corporation counsel for Wayne County, told the canvassers on Friday that the board had precedent to reject the ballots based on similar cases in the past. She recommended that the ballots be rejected.

The Democrats on the board, Richard Preuss and Edward Keelean, both argued the votes should be counted. Preuss, the board’s vice chair, said he would like to see affidavits or sworn testimony from the officials who entered the office, because “throwing out votes without having evidence is reckless.”

“I haven’t seen any evidence saying there’s any fraud,” he said, “and to say that these 37 don’t count because of an allegation of potential fraud is completely contrary to this board’s sworn duty.”

Lisa Capatina, a Republican and the chair of the board, argued that such an investigation would be outside of the power of the canvassers. The canvassers are ministerial, she said, meaning their primary job is to confirm the election results.

The canvassers ultimately voted along party lines, and the 2-2 deadlock means the ballots will not be counted.

The mayoral election now hinges on 120 cured ballots tabulated during the canvasser’s meeting Thursday. Those will be taken into the count on Tuesday as the board finalizes the canvas.

Mahmood, the currently trailing mayoral candidate, told Votebeat before the meeting that he hoped the canvassers “did the right thing.”

“At the end of the day, those are people’s votes,” he said. He declined to comment further after the meeting.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Ballot custody questions complicate aftermath of Hamtramck election

2025-11-14T00:46:01+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Sometime in the hours after last week’s election in Hamtramck, officials who weren’t involved in elections walked into the city clerk’s office, a space that’s supposed to be a secure place to keep ballots.

That revelation has thrown the outcome of the Michigan city’s entire election into doubt, including an exceedingly close mayoral race.

Update: Hamtramck batch of absentee ballots won’t be counted, disenfranchising 37 voters

A total of 37 absentee ballots were initially unaccounted for on election night but were later discovered in the clerk’s office, opened but not yet tabulated. But since those ballots were not secured and could have been accessed by others, it’s currently up in the air whether they will be included in the election’s final totals.

The fate of the 37 ballots now rests with the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, which deadlocked on the decision Thursday and put off a resolution until Friday. City officials’ breach of the ballots’ chain of custody — a core safeguard in election law — has cast new doubt on the city’s election system, which is already under scrutiny amid ongoing criminal investigations and unusually high numbers of corrected absentee ballots.

How the canvassers rule on the 37 ballots could affect who wins the open-seat mayoral election in Hamtramck, a city of about 28,000 that borders Detroit. According to unofficial results, engineer Adam Alharbi currently leads City Council member Muhith Mahmood by only 11 votes.

Ballots discovered after the election

City Clerk Rana Faraj told the board of canvassers on Thursday that her records showed a 37-ballot discrepancy on election night but that no one knew where the ballots were. They were found the next day in the clerk’s office, opened but still in their envelopes. When the discovery was made, the clerk immediately sealed the ballots in a secure envelope and brought them to the county, Faraj said.

The city clerk’s office is normally a secure space, so the discovery did not immediately raise questions about the ballots’ validity. However, Faraj said, her staff later realized several city officials, including interim City Manager Alex Lagrou, had entered the office while the ballots were there.

It’s unusual for non-election officials to go into a clerk’s office around an election, and it is not clear why they did so. Lagrou could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

“This is an issue of election law,” said Lisa A. Capatina, the chair of the canvassers board. Capatina and Toni Sellars, the Republicans on the board, voted against tabulating the ballots, while Democrats Richard Preuss and Edward Keelean voted in favor.

The canvassers ultimately tabled the decision on the advice of Becki Carmargo, assistant corporation counsel for Wayne County. They will reconvene on Friday afternoon. The state deadline for canvassing is Tuesday.

Preuss said he would love to hear from residents before making a decision.

“There seems to be a robust amount of people here at this meeting today that would like to have a chance to speak,” he said.

Those who spoke during public comment at Thursday’s board meeting were split. A number of self-identified Hamtramck residents said it would be wrong to disenfranchise those 37 voters, while others felt those ballots should no longer be considered after the chain of custody was broken.

Investigations into Hamtramck elections

The revelation is yet another blow to election confidence in a city that has been racked by scandal. Several members of the City Council are being investigated for alleged election crimes, and one person who was also under investigation won election to the council last week. There have been accusations of ballot stuffing, intimidation, fraud, and more, including felony charges against council members.

Meanwhile, Faraj confirmed she has been on paid leave since Monday, which she told Votebeat on Thursday during the meeting was “for her safety.” She did not expand on what that meant.

Even if the 37 ballots are eventually counted, the election isn’t over. The city also has 120 “cured” ballots left to include in the final totals, Greg Mahar, the director of Wayne County elections, told the canvassers. That’s a significant number for a city of around 28,000 residents; Detroit, in comparison, had only 72 for a city of nearly 650,000.

It’s unclear why there were so many cured ballots in Hamtramck. Mahar attributed it largely to the open-seat race for mayor, but Detroit — which also had an open mayoral race — did not see the same spike.

“It is a bit unusual,” he told the canvassers.

Correction, Nov. 14: An earlier version of this story misstated the title of Becki Carmargo. She is assistant corporation counsel for Wayne County.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Dearborn, Michigan, election clouded by worker misstep

2025-11-14T00:24:39+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Wayne County officials say the Dearborn City Clerk’s office may have made the city’s recent election — in which George Darany won another four-year term as clerk — impossible to recount, because workers stored absentee ballots in the wrong container, breaking the chain of custody.

Initial election results last week showed Darany trailing his opponent, Sami Elhady, but overwhelming support from absentee voters helped him win by around 2,400 votes.

Those ballots, however, were placed in “retention bags” instead of certified ballot containers. Certified ballot containers typically have multiple seal points and reinforced sides to ensure security, while retention bags are canvas and not as secure. That decision broke the chain of custody, county officials said Thursday during a Wayne County Board of Canvassers meeting.

The improper storage of ballots is potentially a misdemeanor, said Becki Carmargo, assistant corporation counsel for Wayne County.

County officials spotted the problem after Dearborn officials brought the bags to the county for assistance with tabulation. In 21 of the city’s 33 precincts, the number of absentee ballots tallied in the initial count did not match the number of absentee ballots recorded on the voter rolls as having been cast, Greg Mahar, the county’s election director, confirmed to Votebeat.

The county canvassers split 2-2 along party lines over whether to recount the out-of-balance precincts. The board voted to go into recess until Friday, and could reconsider the matter then.

Darany apologized and said his office “mistakenly” chose the wrong bags to store the ballots “in the wee hours of the morning.” The office of city clerk is nonpartisan. Darany previously served in the state Legislature as a Democrat.

“We understand that they’re not certified bags, but the bags were sealed, and they did have the words ‘ballot bags’ on the side, which is how this happened,” Darany told the canvassers during the meeting Thursday, which he attended via Zoom. He did not immediately respond to a phone message from Votebeat requesting comment.

Darany said at the meeting that it was the first time such a thing had happened in his eight years as clerk. Nearly 27,000 ballots were cast in the Nov. 4 election, and of those, just over 7,700 were absentee, according to unofficial results.

Elhady, Darany’s opponent, told Votebeat that it is “alarming that we have a clerk that is not keeping up with the demands of election law.”

He has not decided whether to challenge the election results, he said, but he was disappointed in how it all played out.

Lisa Capatina, chair of the Wayne County canvassers, said she appreciated Darany taking responsibility for the problem. Democrats Edward Keelean and Richard Preuss voted to redo the count, while Republicans Capatina and Toni Sellars voted against it.

“It’s clear to me that there was a loss of the chain of custody,” Sellars said, before voting against retabulation.

Absentee ballots have been a persistent problem for the city in this election. The city had to reprint 10,000 ballots because an extra candidate was left in the City Council portion of the ballot. The reprinting cost more than $3,000, a cost likely to be shouldered by the city.

Ballots are reviewed by several people in the clerk’s office before being printed. Darany also took the blame for that.

Correction, Nov. 14: An earlier version of this story misstated the title of Becki Carmargo. She is assistant corporation counsel for Wayne County.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Elections went smoothly on Tuesday despite setbacks in New Jersey and Pennsylvania

2025-11-10T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Millions of Americans voted in state and local elections on Tuesday, and for the most part, it went smoothly. In many high-profile cases, including closely watched gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, it appears the powers that be granted what is jokingly known as the election administrator’s prayer: “Please, let this election not be close.”

Election signs outside Salem Civic Center in Salem, Virginia, on Election Day, Nov. 4, 2025.

Voters and election officials still had to contend with bomb threats in New Jersey, as well as one in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania — a harsh callback to the rash of bomb threats around the country that marred the 2024 election.

In Chester County, Pennsylvania, as Votebeat’s Carter Walker has reported, a pollbook error means that more than 12,000 independent and unaffiliated voters had to cast provisional ballots, and their eligibility must now be verified before those ballots are tallied.

Voting on elections

In some places, voters were asked to make decisions about future elections. In Texas, voters approved a constitutional amendment specifying that voters must be citizens. In Maine, voters rejected a referendum that would have put new voter ID requirements and new restrictions on absentee voting in place (Voting Rights Lab has a helpful tracker of voter ID requirements in different states).

And, of course, in California, voters overwhelmingly approved new congressional district maps, part of a wildly unusual midcycle redistricting push around the country. California’s new maps, an attempt to offset new Texas maps favoring Republicans, will open opportunities for Democrats to pick up seats in the U.S. House.

Following up on federal election monitors

In last week’s newsletter, Jessica Huseman wrote about the U.S. Justice Department’s plans to send federal monitors to some locations in New Jersey and California, and how, in the context of President Donald Trump’s efforts to exert more control over elections, the news had made many people uneasy.

So this week, I followed up with some election officials in both states to ask how it went. State election officials in New Jersey didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In an emailed response, the California Secretary of State’s Office said the election “was secure and transparent,” adding, “the U.S. Department of Justice has not informed the State of any details about their observation.”

Election offices in Los Angeles and Orange counties, two jurisdictions the Justice Department had said it planned to monitor, confirmed nothing disruptive happened during the election, and the Fresno Bee reported all was quiet in Fresno, too.

On Wednesday, Michael Sanchez, a spokesman for the chief elections official in Los Angeles County, said his office was “unsure of whether federal observers visited vote centers in Los Angeles County,” and had not received reports of them actually doing so. Sanchez said monitors could still choose to observe post-election processing at the ballot processing center.

Bob Page, the registrar of voters in Orange County, also said he had not heard of any issues. Page said one of two Justice Department monitors assigned to the county had been observing operations at its central ballot processing facility this week, at one point asking for clarification on vote-by-mail ballot signature verification procedures.

What will happen next?

There continues to be concern about what the Trump administration will do next on elections and he sent some signals on that this week. He continued to level unsupported accusations against California’s elections on social media.

At a White House press briefing Tuesday, in response to a question from PBS reporter Elizabeth Landers, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said the White House is working on a forthcoming executive order “to strengthen our elections.”

Trump issued a first executive order on elections in March, though major provisions have been halted by the courts. He has since said he plans a second one, though it isn’t clear exactly when that will come or what it will include.

Since Tuesday’s election, Trump has also repeatedly pressured senators to eliminate the filibuster, saying it will allow Congress to pass new election laws, including national voter ID requirements eliminating mail voting, except for members of the military.

So far, key senators have said no.

Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.

Pima County official blasts threats spurred by video of election workers

2025-11-07T22:21:45+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

A video circulating on social media of Pima County election workers emptying an overfilled ballot drop box prompted threats against them that county officials have reported to law enforcement, county officials said.

Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly said she reported the threats this week to Tucson police and the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center. Cázares-Kelly also said the workers followed all laws and required procedures.

“I’m surprised people didn’t quit on the spot,” she said in an interview with Votebeat Arizona Thursday.

The video was shot Tuesday as a bipartisan team of two workers and a supervisor began unloading the drop box, which has a capacity of 1,500 ballot envelopes but at the time had 3,000 stuffed into it, Cázares-Kelly said.

The 42-second video shows the workers pulling out ballot envelopes and placing them into a transfer bag. It also shows one of the workers telling a woman that the box is full, and she can instead place her ballot envelope directly into the transfer bag. The video was reposted by some social media accounts with large followings, though Votebeat couldn’t immediately determine the initial source of the video.

Cázares-Kelly said the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center — which says it is a joint effort between the Arizona Department of Public Safety, Arizona Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other agencies — initially alerted her to the posts about the video late Tuesday.

Cázares-Kelly said she became aware Wednesday of threats posted on social media, some of which she said have since been removed. She read some to Votebeat, including one that said, “Shoot them, shoot them. Why are people just standing there and filming rather than stopping them?”

In a statement and a subsequent interview, Cázares-Kelly, a Democrat, stressed that the workers, who were making an emergency pickup because the box was overfilled, were following all laws and protocols. They wore lanyards with identification badges and were putting the ballot envelopes into transfer bags, which they subsequently sealed with zip ties and logged according to chain-of-custody procedures, she said. One of the workers is holding the zip ties as she moves envelopes from the box to the bag in the video.

In the statement, the Pima County Recorder’s Office said the team followed all necessary protocols, including taking the ballots to the ballot processing center “in a rental car clearly marked as an Official Election vehicle,” notifying the main office of arrival and departure times, and completing required transfer documentation.

The drop box was at a county recorder building, and in the video, a surveillance camera can be seen on the wall.

Arizona Republican Party Chair Gina Swoboda, who is also a certified elections officer in Arizona, said she saw the video and also saw nothing wrong.

“What I see is three election workers doing their job,” Swoboda said. “They open the drop box and it’s full and that’s the sign of a good turnout.”

Swoboda said she tried calling the Pima County Recorder’s Office after seeing the video and the social media response, but the lines were jammed. Swoboda said the posts on the social media platform X mischaracterizing the video are part of a pattern in which innocent people are endangered by posts inaccurately suggesting they are doing something wrong. She said this trend is dangerous amid rising political violence.

Among those reposting the video Tuesday was state Sen. Jake Hoffman, a Republican, who wrote, “Well this looks super duper secure,” adding a frowning emoji. Reached for comment about whether he had done due diligence before reposting the video and told of the threats, Hoffman, a Republican, said the questions show why people don’t trust the media.

“What did I say that would lead to them getting death threats?” he askefd.

Hoffman and others, including state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, a Republican who is running for secretary of state, also posted on Election Day citing reports that Cázares-Kelly’s office was turning away political party observers at polling places. But there were no polling places, since the election in Pima County was a mail-only election. The observers were turned away from ballot-replacement centers.

The state Republican Party account, controlled by Swoboda, tweeted that there is no legal requirement to allow observers into a ballot replacement center, and that Pima County has never allowed them there.

Hoffman said Swoboda “sounds more like a Democrat these days.” Kolodin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cázares-Kelly said people should call her office for verification when they see social media posts accusing election workers of wrongdoing.

“I really hope that people can recognize the impact this is having on the security of our elections and our democracy,” Cázares-Kelly said. “Our elections are secure, they’re transparent, and I want to say that they’re safe, but right now I can’t say that with this type of activity.”

Contact Votebeat at az.tips@votebeat.org.

Judge won’t halt audit of Maricopa County’s election technology

2025-11-06T19:58:39+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

What happened? A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Thursday rejected Maricopa County Recorder Justin Heap’s request to halt an audit of the county’s voter registration system and election technology.

Judge Scott Blaney wrote that he was initially concerned voters’ personal information would be at risk, but was “credibly informed” that the county and vendor had a comprehensive nondisclosure agreement and the vendor’s personnel had undergone background checks. Blaney also found “that the Recorder has not established that the Board’s actions with regard to the assessment violate any Arizona statute.”

What’s the dispute? The emergency hearing over the audit of the voter registration system on Monday was one part of a larger legal fight between Heap and the county Board of Supervisors over how election duties and authority should be divided between them.

After Heap, a Republican, took office in January, he rejected an earlier agreement that governed how elections would be run, saying his predecessor, also a Republican, and the previous iteration of the Republican-controlled five-member board had taken away duties assigned to him under law.

Heap and the board negotiated for months before Heap filed suit on June 12, claiming that the supervisors “engaged in an unlawful attempt to seize near-total control over the administration of elections.” The supervisors then countersued.

Heap asked Blaney to issue an immediate order to halt the review of the county’s voter registration system by a vendor, the Intersect Group, and suspend its contract. Heap’s chief information officer, Bryan Colby, in court documents said he was concerned that the vendor would have “unfettered access to sensitive election systems.”

Heap’s attorney, James Rogers, argued in court on Monday that “only the recorder has the authority to grant the access” that the contractor has.

The Board of Supervisors’ attorney, Kory Langhofer, said the law allows access for a “government official doing his job,” and that includes contractors.

“It doesn’t say a W2, salaried employee with pension,” Langhofer said. “It just says, okay, government official. You can be a government official on contract.”

Blaney wrote in his ruling that he was particularly concerned about giving the Intersect Group access to voter data typically kept confidential through a separate program for domestic violence victims, police officers, and judges, but he “was credibly informed” in the hearing that the vendor would not have access to that.

The county Board of Supervisors said in court filings that it had ordered the review in May to determine how best to split the voter registration database to do the different election functions of the recorder and the board. The recorder is typically responsible for early voting and voter registration, while the board is responsible for candidate and campaign filings, in-person voting, vote centers, hiring of elections workers, and the processing and tabulation of ballots.

The board said that the Intersect Group was carefully vetted and signed a nondisclosure agreement. Thomas Basile, the board’s attorney, said consultants who access information such as birthdates and Social Security numbers go through the same background checks as temporary election workers.

Heap and the supervisors have also clashed over a separate audit of the county’s election processes by the accounting firm BerryDunn, documents obtained by Votebeat show.

Supervisors board Chairman Tom Galvin said in an Oct. 1 letter to Heap that the recorder had ignored auditors even though he had agreed in meetings that such an audit was necessary.

Heap responded saying he objected in part because of the pending litigation, which could fundamentally change the county’s election administration system.

Langhofer threatened in an Oct. 22 letter to subpoena testimony and documents from Heap.

Heap spokesperson, Judy Keane, confirmed to Votebeat on Oct. 31 that the office will provide requested documents to the BerryDunn auditors.

What happens now? A hearing on the lawsuit is scheduled for January.

Read more Votebeat coverage of the dispute between Heap and Maricopa County supervisors:

Maricopa County recorder turns over texts sought by Votebeat about his fight for election authority, Sept. 22, 2025
Democratic Maricopa County supervisor calls for corruption investigation into recorder, July 30, 2025
Text messages show how Maricopa County recorder pressured supervisors for control of elections, July 30, 2025
Arizona budget proposes millions for Maricopa County recorder as he clashes with supervisors, June 20, 2025
Maricopa County recorder sues supervisors over election powers, June 12, 2025
Maricopa County poised to hire national consulting firm for review of election procedures, May 20, 2025
In Arizona’s Maricopa County, a public ‘battle’ for control of elections, February 27, 2025

Contact Votebeat at az.tips@votebeat.org.

If federal election monitors in New Jersey and California do their job, they pose little threat

2025-11-03T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced it would send monitors to polling sites in California and New Jersey during the upcoming elections, following requests from state Republican parties. Given today’s political tensions, and President Donald Trump’s comments and actions on elections, it’s understandable that the news of federal intervention made many people uneasy.

But the presence of federal monitors at polling sites isn’t new, isn’t necessarily alarming, and doesn’t mean things will go wrong.

The Justice Department has been monitoring elections this way for decades, under Democratic and Republican administrations. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the department’s Civil Rights Division has had the authority to send trained staff to observe elections to ensure that everyone can cast ballots freely and without intimidation. They are not there to run the election or count ballots, and federal law doesn’t intend or allow for them to interfere.

A lot of good things have happened as a result of federal monitoring, and these monitors have also been integral in ensuring that laws intended to protect voters were enforced. Cities like St. Louis, which was the subject of litigation over voting access for disabled people, have seen monitors to ensure that terms of legal settlements were followed. Monitors performed a similar function in Alaska, ensuring language access for voters in Alaska’s native-language jurisdictions.

Court orders also play a role. Union County, New Jersey, for example, is currently eligible for federal observers as a result of a court order under the Voting Rights Act, after the county was found not to have provided adequate voting materials in Spanish.

That’s not one of the places where the Justice Department is sending monitors this year. They will be sent to polling sites in Passaic County, New Jersey, as well as Kern, Riverside, Fresno, Orange, and Los Angeles counties in California.

California officials are criticizing the Justice Department’s decision to send monitors, and state Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said the state will be sending observers to watch the federal observers. California’s U.S. senators, both Democrats, have sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, asking her to withdraw the observers “due to the Department’s blatantly partisan motivations.”

California, of course, is far from the first state to object over the years, though dynamics often shift based on politics. In 2024, some red states, including Texas, said they wouldn’t allow the observers in; Texas ultimately agreed to do so.

This kind of monitoring happens regularly. Sometimes monitors are assigned to a location because of specific complaints about accessibility, and sometimes it’s because of a history of voting rights violations. Sometimes, local officials request them.

In short, they are intended to be safeguards, not sirens. The elections in California and New Jersey are some of the biggest contests on the calendar this year, so it makes sense to station monitors in those places.

I’m not naïve about the potential risks here. This administration has said some truly wild things about voting, and it’s impossible to forget the attack on the U.S. Capitol. There are reasons to be cautious and to keep a close eye on how this unfolds. But historically, these monitoring efforts have been routine and uneventful — a normal part of how our democracy safeguards itself. In theory, this round should go the same way. At the very least, we know what the historical standard of behavior looks like, and we’ll be able to judge current actions against it in real time.

So if you see these monitors in your community, don’t assume they are there because a scandal is brewing, and don’t let them deter you from exercising your right. Simply vote. In the unlikely event that they do interfere in any way with your voting experience, alert a poll worker, who can ask the county for help.

Years of false claims about elections have done real damage to public trust, and the possibility of voter intimidation is a growing concern. Many voters, advocates and officials worry that the Justice Department’s action may be in bad faith. But historically, the presence of these monitors at the polls is less a sign that democracy is crumbling, and more a reminder that it stands.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Judge rules against Trump’s call for proof-of-citizenship requirement for voters

2025-10-31T21:15:08+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

What happened?

A federal judge Friday permanently blocked a key provision of the sweeping executive order on elections President Donald Trump issued in March.

The ruling, from Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, blocks his direction to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to take steps to require documentary proof of citizenship from people registering to vote.

“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

What’s the dispute?

Multiple nonprofit groups and Democratic Party committees sued Trump, the EAC, and other federal agencies over the order he signed in March calling for broad changes in how elections are administered. The plaintiffs argue that the Constitution does not grant the president authority to set rules for elections.

The lawsuits challenge multiple provisions of the executive order, including one that directs the EAC to add a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form; another requiring the agency to withhold federal funds from states that don’t comply with its requirements; and one prohibiting states from accepting mail ballots postmarked before Election Day, but received afterwards.

The Justice Department argued the order is legal under existing federal laws.

Kollar-Kotelly in April issued a preliminary injunction halting some provisions of executive order, including this provision. Her order Friday made that permanent.

Who are the plaintiffs?

Two of the lawsuits were filed by a collection of nonprofit groups, including the League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Women Voters, the NAACP, and others. Another was filed on behalf of Democratic national party committees and leadership. Additional lawsuits challenging provisions in the executive order are pending in other federal courts, including one by Democratic attorneys general in 19 states and another by the states of Oregon and Washington. A second federal judge also issued a preliminary injunction in June in the case filed by Democratic attorneys general.

The lawsuits by the Democratic and nonprofit groups were filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and assigned to Kollar-Kotelly, who consolidated them. Kollar-Kotelly was nominated in 1997 by former President Bill Clinton.

What are they asking for?

The lawsuits asked the judge to stop the government from implementing or enforcing the provisions of the executive order under challenge, and, ultimately, to find them unconstitutional.

What happens now?

Kollar-Kotelly has yet to rule on challenges to additional provisions, and the remaining lawsuits in connection with the executive order are still pending. The Justice Department did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment on the ruling, which could be appealed.

Read more Votebeat coverage of the challenges to Trump’s executive order on regulating elections:

Trump’s executive order on elections is partly blocked by federal court, April 24, 2025
Judge hears challenges to Trump’s executive order on regulating elections, April 17, 2025
With Trump’s executive order, thousands of military voters could see their rights curtailed, April 10, 2025
First lawsuits against Trump’s election order cite text of Constitution, April 7, 2025
Democratic attorneys general sue Trump over elections executive order, April 3, 2025
New Trump order targets barcodes on ballots. Why? And what will that mean? March 28, 2025
Trump orders an overhaul of how elections are run, inviting a likely legal challenge, March 25, 2025

Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.

How ranked choice voting works — illustrated by the election for Votebeat’s pet mascot

2025-10-30T09:00:00+00:00

You may have heard or read a lot about ranked choice voting recently. In New York City this year, voters selected the Democratic candidate for mayor through a ranked choice election. In Michigan, activists are circulating petitions for a proposal to adopt ranked choice voting in elections in the state, while legislators consider forbidding communities from implementing it.

What is ranked choice voting? Read our special feature to find out.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

More Pennsylvania voters than ever will use electronic pollbooks this November

2025-10-22T16:18:44+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

When Pennsylvania voters head to the polls this fall, more of them than ever will be using iPad-style tablet computers to sign in rather than paper.

Over half of Pennsylvania’s counties are now using these electronic pollbooks, with rapid growth fueled in part by an allocation of state money that started in 2022.

Election officials and advocates say e-pollbooks make voting quicker and more efficient, while helping election officials keep more accurate records. Plus, they argue, if the state ever institutes in-person early voting, as many states have done, they will be essential for making sure polling sites and workers have the most current information.

E-pollbooks are digital versions of the printed voter lists poll workers use to check in voters at precincts on Election Day. They speed up check-in by enabling election workers to look up voters’ names quickly, rather than having to thumb through the physical books to find the right page while the line of waiting voters keeps growing, said Megan Maier, deputy director of research and partnerships at Verified Voting.

They typically run on a laptop, tablet computer, or similar device, using specialized software. Most pollbooks used in Pennsylvania run on Apple iPads.

According to data from Verified Voting, 84% of voters across the country will check in with the help of an e-pollbook this November, up from less than 50% during the 2016 presidential election.

In Pennsylvania, the growth has been even steeper.

In 2016, just four counties were using e-pollbooks, according to Verified Voting, and in 2020, it was 10 counties. Now, according to a map from the Pennsylvania Department of State, 33 of the commonwealth’s 67 counties are using them, and at least one more is doing a pilot program this fall.

Mercer County purchased e-pollbooks for its 91 precincts in August, and will use them in next month’s election. Thad Hall, the county’s election director, agreed they help check voters in more quickly and make it easier for workers to resolve issues such as voters being in the wrong location.

But the most important benefit, he said, is that it will make it easier and faster to conduct a critical post-election check known as reconciliation, when counties check the number of ballots they received against the number of voters recorded as having voted, to make sure that the numbers line up.

In counties that use paper pollbooks, this process involves poll workers using the “numbered list” — essentially a manual running tally — of all the voters who come into the precinct, and double-checking it against the number of ballots that are voted in the precinct.

This can introduce human error, Hall said, because poll workers sometimes make mistakes recording voters on the numbered list.

The e-pollbooks, by contrast, automatically keep the tally of all the voters who cast a ballot at a given polling place. And once the polls close, election workers can simply upload all the precinct tallies to the state’s election management system.

Equipment is expensive, but new legislation could help

Jerry Feaser, a former Dauphin County elections director who now works for e-pollbook vendor Knowink, said the surge in e-pollbook use in the state is due in large part to Act 88, a 2022 law that distributed $45 million each year to Pennsylvania counties for election administration — one of the state’s largest-ever investments for that purpose.

Some counties used those funds to purchase equipment while others used them to offset other election costs, freeing up county dollars for big purchases.

Hall said Mercer County couldn’t have afforded the e-pollbooks without Act 88. Mercer County purchased the physical equipment with county money, but Act 88 funds help cover the software and ongoing support costs.

“The Act 88 money is critical for us doing this over time, being able to pay for the recurring cost,” he said.

Even with the state money, the cost can be a barrier.

The Knowink Poll Pad, the most widely used device in the state, costs $1,750 per unit, according to Feaser, and additional software and services can increase that price.

Hall said that in total, Mercer County paid roughly $200,000. For Lancaster County, which currently does not have e-pollbooks, it would cost more than $400,000 to put them in all 240 precincts.

A bill before the state Senate could provide more funding for other counties to purchase the devices while also creating new requirements for them.

The bill, sponsored by state House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia), cleared that chamber earlier this year, and would provide $60 million for the purchase or lease of e-pollbooks and election infrastructure equipment.

The bill would also provide a clear definition of what an e-pollbook is and what standards it must meet, something that doesn’t exist in state law now. The secretary of the commonwealth currently regulates and certifies them under other authorities granted in the election code, but McClinton’s bill would codify standards.

Regulation and early voting

E-pollbooks are also practically a necessity for another one of the speaker’s priorities: early voting.

Paper pollbooks need to be printed and delivered to polling sites ahead of Election Day. McClinton’s bill would allow early voting up until the Sunday before Election Day, leaving little time before the Tuesday election to print updated pollbooks that reflect all the voters in the precinct who already cast ballots early.

But the bill is stalled in the Republican-controlled state Senate, where GOP lawmakers have repeatedly said they will not advance election legislation without an expanded voter ID requirement, which McClinton’s bill lacks.

E-pollbooks have run into some problems. Philadelphia experimented with Knowink e-pollbooks in 2019, but ultimately decided to scrap the contract just weeks before Election Day due to difficulties connecting the devices to printers and “inadequate election night reporting,” The Philadelphia Inquirer reported at the time. Philadelphia ultimately moved forward with a different vendor, Election Systems & Software, in 2023.

Maier, from Verified Voting, also said that while e-pollbooks typically speed up the voter check-in process, they can cause issues if they haven’t been synced with the most up-to-date voter list.

But in general, the new technology has been popular. Feaser said that after his workers tested e-pollbooks in Dauphin County in 2019, they were reluctant to give them up.

“They said, ‘If you try to take this away from us, we will charge the courthouse with torches and pitchforks,’” Feaser recalled.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Suspended voter registrations in Arizona’s Pinal County top 1,100 after state error

2025-10-22T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

Thousands of voters in Maricopa County caught up in a state record-keeping error won’t yet lose their voting rights for not providing proof of citizenship, county officials now say. But Pinal County has suspended more than a thousand voters affected by the error who have tried to update their registration without providing the proof.

How Maricopa and Pinal handle these affected voters will determine whether they can cast ballots in jurisdictional elections scheduled for Nov. 4. Arizona counties began sending ballots to voters on Oct. 8, and Maricopa and Pinal counties are running their elections entirely by mail.

The suspended Pinal County voters will not receive ballots in the mail. They can cast a provisional ballot, but would have to request it in person.

The state announced the error in September 2024, and since then, election officials have been wrestling with how best to handle it. The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office told 83,000 voters in June that they had 90 days to respond with a birth certificate, passport, or other document, or it would classify them federal-only voters who could vote only in presidential and congressional races.

The 90-day period ended Sept. 25.

But Judy Keane, a spokeswoman for the Maricopa County Recorder, said the office will keep all voters affected by the error in their current voting status for the Nov. 4 election.

“At the same time, the office is diligently working to verify the citizenship status of the approximately 83,000 impacted voters to ensure every lawful voter can participate in the 2026 elections and beyond,” Keane said in an email to Votebeat.

The Maricopa County Recorder’s Office’s new approach aligns with an opinion Attorney General Kris Mayes issued in August, aimed at creating a uniform statewide policy. Secretary of State Adrian Fontes requested the opinion after Votebeat reported that recorders around the state had been treating affected voters in different ways.

Most counties appear to have followed the opinion, which said county recorders don’t have the authority to suspend voters’ registrations or switch them to the federal-only rolls if they fail to respond to notices. Mayes’ opinion doesn’t have the force of law, but Fontes’ office has advised counties to follow it.

How Maricopa and Pinal policies differed

The error originated with a problem in Arizona Motor Vehicle Division records. Roughly 200,000 longtime residents statewide were listed as having provided proof of U.S. citizenship, which is a requirement to vote in state and local elections in Arizona, even though they had not done so or been asked to. The discovery set off a scramble among Arizona counties to notify voters, request proof of citizenship, and determine how to handle voters who didn’t respond.

While Maricopa County told voters it would move them to the federal-only rolls if they didn’t provide proof of citizenship, Pinal County took a different approach.

The Pinal County Recorder’s Office did not disturb the existing registrations of voters caught in the glitch unless they tried to update their registrations without providing proof of citizenship. At that point, if those voters didn’t provide the required proof, their registrations were effectively suspended.

Pinal County based its policy on a state law that requires election officials to reject voter registration applications filed on a state form if they do not include proof of citizenship. The county interpreted that law to also include voters updating their registrations for changes of address, name, or party affiliation, sweeping in the voters affected by the state error.

Lisa James, a spokeswoman for the Pinal County Recorder’s Office, said the office had suspended 1,106 Pinal County voters as of Oct. 9, under its interpretation of state law.

That means those voters will have their voting status set to “unregistered/not registered” pending proof of citizenship, and they will not be able to vote until they provide the citizenship proof, James confirmed.

But these voters’ registrations are not canceled, James said. She added that the recorder’s office has been trying to reach affected voters to let them know what they need to do to reactivate their registration. She said the outreach process started with elections last month: a special election in the 7th Congressional District and one to incorporate San Tan Valley.

“Everybody wants everybody to be able to vote,” James said.

James also said the county has asked the state attorney general’s office whether its approach is correct.

Richie Taylor, a spokesman for Mayes, said his office is “speaking with the county on the matter but I don’t anticipate another opinion.”

Suspended Pinal voters must request provisional ballot in person

Affected voters in Pinal County will still be able to cast a provisional ballot, which will be counted as long as they provide proof of citizenship by 7 p.m. on Election Day, County Recorder Dana Lewis said.

Since the Nov. 4 election will be only by mail, voters will have to visit the Pinal County Recorder’s Office in Florence or one of its satellite offices to obtain a provisional ballot, Lewis said.

Those sites are staffed by election officials who can accept the proof from voters, Lewis told Votebeat by email. “We will be able to capture the required documentation on Election Day,” she wrote.

Fontes said in an emailed statement that he’s glad to see Maricopa County align with the attorney general’s legal opinion and not shift voters to the federal-only rolls. He called the decision “smart and fair,” and said affected voters should be permitted to cast ballots in the upcoming jurisdictional elections.

The problems caused by the MVD’s errors “were not the fault of voters,” Fontes said.

Contact Votebeat at az.tips@votebeat.org.

What does the sale of Dominion Voting Systems mean? For now, not much.

2025-10-17T18:18:19+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

The sale of Dominion Voting Systems — the election technology company that Trump allies aggressively targeted with false claims about the 2020 election — took state and local election officials by surprise last week.

An announcement from the new owner, led by former Republican election official Scott Leiendecker, described the acquisition as “a bold and historic move to transform and improve election integrity in America.” It echoed language used by President Donald Trump and other conservatives who have questioned the security of elections and voting machines, including calls for hand-marked paper ballots.

But for now, the sale appears to be more of a rebranding than a revolution. Dominion is operating under the name of its new owner, called Liberty Vote. State election officials say they have now been told no staff changes, contract terminations, or product overhauls are expected.

“Once we took a step back and took a deep breath, we realized not much was changing,” said Matt Crane, director of the Colorado Clerks Association, who organized a call between Leiendecker and the state’s many election officials to address their concerns.

Election officials caught off guard

The announcement’s tone and lack of notice initially alarmed at least some officials who rely on Dominion’s systems. Jurisdictions in 27 states use some Dominion equipment, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia, according to Verified Voting, which tracks that data.

Robert Sinners, spokesperson for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, said the office found out only a few hours before the news became public last week, and clerks in his state weren’t initially sure how, if at all, their contracts would be affected.

“The clerks were very upset about this,” said Crane, from Colorado. But the call assuaged their worry, leaving clerks cautiously optimistic, and at least one more has taken place since.

“He’s saying all the right things,” Crane said.

A Liberty Vote official told Votebeat in an email that there was “an intensive effort to inform existing customers as quickly as possible following the acquisition and formal meetings occurred immediately following the public announcement.”

Many customers were informed by their existing support staff, who will continue to provide service under the new name. “With respect to staffing and contracting, there are no plans for any changes at this time,” the Liberty Vote official said.

Leiendecker has been involved in elections for a long time. A former elections director in St. Louis, he founded the company Knowink in 2011, and it has since become the nation’s most widely used vendor for electronic pollbooks, the systems used to check in voters at polling places.

Liberty Vote is a separate company that he created to acquire Dominion. Leiendecker told clerks in Colorado he is the sole owner, and a representative told Wired magazine that Leiendecker privately financed the acquisition.

Leiendecker sees no change for Colorado

Liberty Vote’s announcement last week said its goal was to “restore public confidence in the electoral process through transparent, secure, and trustworthy voting systems, including the use of hand-marked paper ballots.”

The statement referenced Donald Trump’s executive order from March that would require the use of paper ballots and ban the use of QR codes on ballots for tabulation purposes. Several provisions of the order are being challenged in court.

In the call with clerks in Colorado, Leiendecker said that the machines in that state would be unaffected. Colorado’s machines, which use hand-marked paper ballots and do not use QR or bar codes for tabulation, already comply with those provisions in Trump’s executive order.

Clerks in Georgia use voting machines that print a QR code on the ballot for vote tabulation. Sinners said that all communication from the new company has reinforced that nothing is changing, at least for now.

The Liberty Vote official confirmed that “all of the current Liberty Vote systems comply with existing federal, state and local laws and regulations,” and said the company will continue to work to improve systems in coordination with state and local officials.

Early voting for a statewide Nov. 4 election begins Tuesday, and Sinners said Dominion’s contract with Georgia, now managed by Liberty Vote, does not expire until 2029. Any changes would be negotiated at that point.

Dominion fought to defend its reputation

Dominion has been among the most scrutinized companies in the country since the 2020 election, when false claims about vote manipulation spread widely among supporters of Trump’s reelection campaign. But Dominion’s systems were repeatedly validated by audits and election officials across the country.

Dominion spent years seeking to clear its name through the courts. In 2023, it settled a defamation lawsuit against Fox News for $787 million, after accusing the network of knowingly broadcasting false claims that Dominion had rigged the election for Joe Biden. In recent weeks, Dominion also reportedly reached undisclosed settlements with former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani in separate defamation cases.

Despite these legal victories, even election officials who never believed the conspiracy theories found it politically difficult to contract with a company so publicly vilified. Counties like Shasta County, California, and Rio Grande, Colorado, either canceled or rescinded contracts with the company. Four county clerks have told Votebeat they declined to consider bids from Dominion because they were concerned about potential blowback.

Despite the initial shock of the sale, some, like Georgia’s Sinners, see the move as a welcome chance to move past years of controversy.

“Honestly, I’m just excited not to talk about Dominion every day anymore,” he said. “If this helps us move on, great.”

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Five years after trying to aid Trump, Pennsylvania’s Fulton County faces steep penalty

2025-10-15T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

After President Donald Trump lost his reelection bid in 2020, he and his allies were pushing false narratives about the election being stolen, pressuring state and local officials, and calling for audits of the results.

In Fulton County, Pennsylvania, a Republican stronghold where Trump won a larger percentage of the vote than anywhere else in the state, local leaders wanted to help.

“Sending this email to see what’s going on with this rigged election,” County Commissioner Randy Bunch, a Republican, wrote to state Sen. Judy Ward, also a Republican, in a Nov. 12 email obtained by watchdog group American Oversight. “We can’t let this election get stolen if there is anything I can do please let me know.”

A few weeks later, according to court documents, the county let an outside company examine its voting machines and download data from them. In text messages sent shortly afterwards, one county commissioner said that if the county hadn’t given the company access, a Trump ally would have forced it to do so via a subpoena.

That decision to allow a third party to access sensitive voting equipment set off far-reaching consequences for Fulton County. As a result of a state order, it had to purchase all-new voting equipment. After years of legal proceedings, the county is facing more than $1 million in fines, an amount equal to roughly one-eighth of the county’s yearly budget.

“It sure is a mess,” said Paula Shives, a Democrat who was a county commissioner at the time, but didn’t approve granting access to the voting equipment. “And unfortunately, it looks like the residents of Fulton County will be responsible for the damages.”

Five years later, election officials in predominantly Republican counties around the country are again getting requests to inspect their voting equipment in connection with the 2020 election.

Recently, The Washington Post reported that a Republican consultant reached out to clerks in Colorado to ask if they would allow a third party to review whether their voting machines complied with federal law. The consultant claimed to be cooperating with “officials working on the President’s executive order.”

A representative of the U.S. Department of Justice also recently approached counties in Missouri asking for access to election equipment used during the 2020 election, though the exact purpose of the request was unclear.

In both cases, officials said they declined the requests. But Lawrence Norden, vice president of the elections and government program at the Brennan Center, noted that election officials in other states might act differently.

“This is just one more thing that election officials are going to have to grapple with,” he said. “They need support from the states to make clear to them what the rules are and the protocols are for dealing with the request for access to the equipment.”

All of this gives new relevance to the choices officials in Fulton County made five years ago — and the expensive consequences the county is still dealing with today.

Commissioner asks: ‘Who authorized this?’

Fulton County sits along the state’s southern border with Maryland west of Gettysburg. Its roughly 15,000 residents are reliable Republicans who haven’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, when Lyndon B. Johnson won the state by a landslide.

Even though Trump romped to victory in Fulton County in 2020, two Republican commissioners there still pushed for an audit in the chaotic period following the election.

Court documents say Bunch and fellow Republican Commissioner Stuart Ulsh allowed a Pennsylvania-based technology company called Wake TSI to “inspect and copy components of” its Dominion Voting election equipment. Wake TSI was also involved in the review of the Maricopa County, Arizona, 2020 election.

Wake TSI was contracted at the time to a nonprofit company run by pro-Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who was challenging election results around the country, according to The Washington Post.

Text messages obtained by American Oversight showed that pressure from a Pennsylvania state senator, Doug Mastriano, may have contributed to the county’s decision to let Wake TSI examine its machines. According to the Post, Mastriano, who is from neighboring Franklin County, told Trump he could arrange an audit in the state, something Trump and his allies had been pushing for.

Shives, who found out after the fact that the examination had gone ahead, expressed consternation in a group text message with the other two commissioners, the records show.

“Who did that,” she asked.

Patti Hess, then the county’s election director, replied with a photo of paperwork from Wake TSI, adding that it was “sent by Senator Mastriano” and that “all counties are to do this.”

“‘All counties are to do this’ by whose order?” Shives asked. “Who authorized this? When was it scheduled? Who was notified and who was present during this process?”

“It was happening this way or in a subpoena,” Ulsh said after some back and forth.

No county appears to have ever received a subpoena in connection with Mastriano’s review.

Why state law restricts access to voting equipment

After commissioners released Wake TSI’s report — which uncovered no fraud — on the county’s website, officials at the Pennsylvania Department of State were alarmed that the county had given a non-governmental outside organization access to its voting equipment. State laws and regulations require such equipment to be kept secure and accessible only to a limited number of government officials and employees of the manufacturer in order to prevent the introduction of any malware.

Attempts to access voting systems occurred elsewhere around the country. In Coffee County, Georgia, Trump attorneys and local election officials allowed an outside company to access voting equipment, which factored into an indictment against Trump and those officials, though that case has since stalled.

In Colorado, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters received a nine-year prison sentence for allowing an outside individual to access and copy data on voting machines. Peters is appealing her conviction, and Trump has advocated for her release.

Trevor Timmons, a former chief information officer with the Colorado Department of State who now serves as chief technology officer with elections consulting firm The Election Group, said access to voting equipment across the country is generally “severely limited.” Poll workers will have some access, needed to run the machines on Election Day, with election directors and vendors typically having the type of higher-level access needed to program machines.

The logic behind keeping access tight is that if someone has physical access to the machine’s programing, they could potentially reprogram the machine to influence the outcome of elections. For example, he said, in a demonstration at a recent hacking conference, he saw someone add the letters “il” in front of the word “legal” in a ballot question, changing the meaning of a question on marijuana legalization.

In the Mesa County case, Peters “allowed somebody in and they imaged the disk, they got a copy of everything that was sitting on that disk,” he said. “To a sophisticated attacker, it allows them to make it easier to learn how the system works and to customize targeted attacks against that software and against those hardware devices.”

County defies court order

In July 2021 the state decertified Fulton County’s machines, telling county officials that no one could “verify that the impacted components of Fulton County’s leased voting system are safe to use in future elections”

The county sued the state over the decertification, and while that case was playing out, the Department of State secured an order from the state Supreme Court temporarily barring any more third-party access to the equipment.

But there was more to the story.

Fulton County had separately sued Dominion Voting for breach of contract, claiming Dominion “failed to provide a system that was free from defects and compliant.” As part of that lawsuit, county officials allowed another company, Speckin Forensics, to examine the machines — an inspection that occurred after the Supreme Court order went into effect.

The Department of State asked the courts to hold the county in contempt for violating the order. After two years of litigation, a special master appointed by the state Supreme Court ordered the county and its attorney to pay $711,252.21 to the department and $324,672.88 to Dominion Voting.

Ulsh, who lost his 2023 reelection bid, told Votebeat and Spotlight PA that he didn’t want to talk about the decision to allow Wake TSI’s examination and the aftermath, calling it “fake news.”

A bill awaits the county’s taxpayers

The county is nearly out of options to avoid paying the fine. It recently lost an appeal in the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in its breach-of-contract case against Dominion, but it also is separately appealing to the state Supreme Court its loss in the case the county had brought against the Department of State.

Both the Department of State and Dominion Voting said they hadn’t yet been paid. Last week, Dominion was purchased by a new company, Liberty Vote. A spokesperson for the new company did not return a request for comment.

“I don’t know how the current board of commissioners are going to (pay) that,” said Shives, who lost her reelection bid in 2023.

Bunch, who is still a commissioner, did not respond to a call seeking comment, or an email to him and the other two current commissioners asking how the county would pay the bill if its appeals are unsuccessful.

“I thought they were crazy,” said Stanley Kerlin, a local attorney and Republican who served as solicitor for the county’s board of elections from 1981 to 2019. “They got sold a bill of goods that that machine was no good and it doesn’t count votes correctly.”

He said it was illogical, in his view, that a conspiracy would involve Fulton County, which voted overwhelmingly for Trump. And if commissioners had doubts about the performance of the machines, he said, a better move would have been hand-counting a precinct or two.

Now, as a result, he said, the county will have “squandered” hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

Kerlin said the commissioners have said they won’t increase taxes to pay the fine. The other option, taking it out of the county’s savings account, still requires taxpayers to foot the bill.

Kerlin said the audit and the fine don’t get talked about much in the county, which shocks him.

“I think a lot of people don’t understand it,” he said, but added, “they’ll understand when they see the headline that the county has to pay ($700,000) to the state.”

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

How a move to new headquarters will transform election work at Pima County Recorder’s Office

2025-10-07T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat’s free national newsletter here.

Pima County voters won’t have to worry about fire sprinklers inadvertently drenching their ballots once the Recorder’s Office and Elections Department move into a new headquarters building next year.

It’s never happened, but in the current space, workers cover the ballots with tarps every night, just in case. The new offices will have a waterless fire retardant, one of many welcome upgrades, Pima County Recorder Gabriella Cázares-Kelly said.

“It’s a really big deal,” Cázares-Kelly said oft the overall move and what it means for voters.

It means moving from a space that could not fully accommodate the needs of the Recorder’s Office to one that will consolidate its operations and provide more space for working, training, and storage, allowing more time to serve the voters, the recorder said.

“If we’re not having to drive to multiple locations just to access our equipment, that means more people on our phones, more people training,” she said.

Recorder’s Office and Elections Department stay together

The push for a move to new offices began before Cázares-Kelly took office in 2021. She said the move could happen as soon as May. The new offices will be in a county-owned building located in the southern edge of Tucson that the federal government previously used to process asylum seekers.

The move will keep the consolidated Recorder’s Office in the same building as the Elections Department. An earlier plan would have separated them, which Elections Director Constance Hargrove said would have been a problem, because workers would’ve had to wheel the ballots from one building to another, making them less secure.

“I think the takeaway is the chain of custody, security of the ballots, is our primary concern,” said Hargrove. “And so having the recorder and elections in the same building is a benefit to the county and to the public.”

The Recorder’s Office is still working with architects to design the new space.

Spokesperson Michael Truelsen said the office doesn’t yet have a cost estimate for the planned renovation and move.

‘So much in this tiny space’

The Recorder’s Office now occupies three separate office spaces in Tucson. The office currently designated for elections work is 7,000 square feet. That’s the equivalent of 1½ basketball courts, but it has handled massive volumes for Arizona’s second most populous county. The workers there scanned envelopes, and verified signatures for 518,416 ballots during the 2024 presidential election.

Cázares-Kelly recalls being puzzled at first when a Tucson city clerk and her staff toured the space and told her they were impressed.

“And I said, ‘Really?’ because that’s not usually the reaction that people have,” Cázares-Kelly said. “And they said, ‘We’re so impressed that you’ve been able to do so much in this tiny space.’”

One problem has been storage space for non-electronic equipment such as signage and sign holders. Cázares-Kelly said those items are currently stored in locations around the county and must be rounded up, cleaned, and delivered to polling places every election. (Pima County has had four elections this year).

That won’t be the case with the new office, which has twice as much space for election work.

That will include a designated training room, more meeting space, larger break rooms, a lactation room, a backup generator, and an observation area for the public and media.

The design also has the voter in mind.

“We are specifically designing the space with the idea that voters will come and drop off their ballots in person, and we will have ballot drop boxes located that are accessible, 24/7, at that facility,” Cázares-Kelly said, adding that it will be helpful to have it on the south side of Tucson, near a high-volume shopping plaza.

Hargrove said the Elections Department has not been crunched for space, but will appreciate a larger break room and a training room in the new space. And she noted that visitors in the observation area will be able to see the operations of the recorder and ballot counting at the same time, which is not the case now.

Contact Votebeat at az.tips@votebeat.org.

Wisconsin Elections Commission challenges order requiring voter citizenship checks

2025-10-06T21:05:57+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Update, Oct. 7, 2025: Waukesha County Judge Michael Maxwell scheduled a hearing on the motion for Oct. 31 andstayed the part of his rulingrequiring new registrants to have their citizenship verified until he decides the DOJ’s overall motion.

Wisconsin state agencies on Monday asked a Waukesha County Circuit Court judge to stay his ruling requiring election officials to verify the citizenship of existing voters and those seeking to register.

The Wisconsin Department of Justice filed the motion on behalf of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the Department of Transportation, and related state officials. In it, the respondents called Judge Michael Maxwell’s Friday ruling “impermissively vague,” because the order bars election officials from processing new registrations without “verification” of applicants’ citizenship but doesn’t define the verification process.

The filing says that any new citizenship verification process for online voter registration would require months of testing and development, and that disabling the electronic registration system in the meantime would conflict with state law requiring that system to exist.

“The impact would be enormous: Wisconsin receives an average of more than 200 online voter registrations per day,” the filing states, citing a declaration from Robert Kehoe, the election commission’s deputy administrator.

The state Justice Department repeated its argument that a citizenship verification system would exceed what state law requires, noting that the Legislature has expressly required proof of residency for new registrants but not proof of citizenship.

The motion further contends Maxwell exceeded his authority by effectively prohibiting local election officials from processing new registrations without verifying citizenship, even though local officials aren’t party to the case.

The state asked for a stay pending appeal and requested a decision by Oct. 6 or an immediate administrative stay while the court considers the motion.

The election commission declined to comment on the ongoing litigation, spokesperson Emilee Miklas said. Attorney Kevin Scott, who represents a Pewaukee voter who brought the case against the commission, said he was hopeful that WEC would “do the right thing” and implement the ruling.

Local election officials did not appear to be rushing to implement Friday’s order. Paulina Gutiérrez, the Milwaukee Election Commission’s executive director, said she’s monitoring the case. Mequon City Clerk Caroline Fochs said that she and other clerks weren’t immediately stressing over implementing the decision since it was likely to be appealed.

“We wait until something is final, and that’s when we start to pay attention,” Fochs said.

Republicans have praised the lower-court ruling as part of their focus on the issue of noncitizen voting. While there’s no evidence of widespread voting by noncitizens, GOP lawmakers have used the issue to call for citizenship checks of all voters, even though such measures can wrongly flag eligible U.S. citizens.

In a separate filing, Kehoe said the commission’s four-person software team could create a separate system, but that would mean choosing between keeping the existing online registration system — which doesn’t verify citizenship — and shutting it down entirely, despite hundreds of Wisconsin residents seeking to register every day.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Wisconsin must verify citizenship of registered voters and new applicants, judge rules

2025-10-03T22:56:52+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

What happened?

A Waukesha County judge on Friday ordered the Wisconsin Elections Commission to determine whether any noncitizens are registered to vote and to stop accepting voter registrations without verifying that the applicant is a U.S. citizen.

What’s the dispute?

A Pewaukee resident, represented by conservative attorneys, filed a lawsuit last year seeking to require the election commission to verify citizenship of registered voters and applicants. The suit also sought to force the Wisconsin Department of Transportation to compare its citizenship information against voter rolls.

The election commission opposed the initial request, saying that no state law called for requiring documented proof of citizenship. It also argued that the DOT has no obligation to match citizenship data with voter records.

Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Michael Maxwell rejected the commission’s argument, saying that the agency is failing in its duty to ensure that only lawful voters make it to the voter roll. He cited several statutes that he said made clear that only citizens could cast a ballot.

Maxwell didn’t specify how the election commission and local clerks should verify citizenship of new registrants, or how the commission should check for noncitizens on the voter rolls. He only called for the parties to figure out a plan, whether that be through matching the DOT’s citizenship data or using “other lawfully available means.” He called for that process to be substantially completed before the next statewide election, which is February.

Currently, applicants for voter registration in Wisconsin and most other states must attest, under penalty of perjury, that they are U.S. citizens who are eligible to vote, but they are not required to present proof of citizenship.

The issue of noncitizen voting has been hotly debated in recent years, though no widespread instances have been found. Republicans have used the concern to call for citizenship proof checks of all voters, even as data shows that such measures risk disenfranchising some U.S. citizens.

Republicans praised the decision, with state Rep. Amanda Nedweski calling it a “great win for election integrity.”

Democrats and the respondents in the case were largely mum.

Election commission spokesperson Emilee Miklas didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Riley Vetterkind, a spokesperson for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, which represents the commission and Department of Transportation, declined to say whether the agencies would appeal the decision.

Who are the parties?

The current plaintiffs, Pewaukee resident Ardis Cerny and Waukesha resident Annette Kuglitsch, sued the election commission, Department of Transportation, and officials in both agencies. They have argued that the election commission is violating their voting rights by not checking for noncitizens already registered to vote and seeking to vote.

Maxwell agreed, saying they “have a clear legal right to not have their votes diluted by a non-citizen casting an unlawful ballot.”

What happens now?

It’s unclear how the commission would verify the citizenship of all of Wisconsin’s registered voters by February. Bryna Godar, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, said the decision will “definitely be appealed” and that the lower-court decision could be stayed while the appeal goes through the courts.

If the case reaches the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the liberal majority could overturn the order of the conservative-leaning Waukesha County Circuit Court.

Read more Votebeat coverage about the fight over citizenship proof:

Wisconsin voters overwhelmingly approve ban on noncitizen voting, Nov. 6, 2024
Fight over Wisconsin DMV data flares as GOP pushes noncitizen voting message, Oct. 25, 2024
Noncitizen voting rarely happens. But Wisconsin voters are hearing a lot about it. Oct. 16, 2024

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

U.S. sues Michigan, Pennsylvania and four other states over request for voter rolls

2025-09-25T20:24:51+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

What happened?

The U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday sued six states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, California, New York, New Hampshire, and Minnesota — for what it said was a “failure to produce their statewide voter registration lists upon request.”

What’s the dispute?

The U.S. Justice Department has sent letters to several states — and said it will eventually contact every state — asking for copies of their voter lists and for detailed information about how they maintain them. The department has said it’s seeking to enforce requirements in federal law that President Donald Trump has ordered it to prioritize.

Some states have declined to turn over their full voter rolls, arguing that to share personally identifiable information would violate various federal and state laws. Several of the states that were sued Thursday, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, have turned over or directed the department to the publicly available versions of their voter rolls, which exclude sensitive personal information.

What is the plaintiff asking for?

The department is requesting personally identifying information that states don’t usually make public, such as partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers. So far, many states, including the six the Justice Department sued Thursday, have declined to provide that information, citing privacy concerns and state law.

The lawsuits, filed in federal court in each of the six states, ask federal judges to force states to provide the voter rolls, including full names, addresses, and either driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of the voters’ Social Security numbers. The lawsuits assert that states are required to provide the information so the Justice Department can assess compliance with federal laws, specifically the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.

In addition to the six states that were sued Thursday, the department last week sued Maine and Oregon.

What happens now?

Pennsylvania will “vigorously fight the federal government’s overreach in court,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, a Republican, said in a statement, calling the department’s request for personal information “unprecedented and unlawful.”

“As Secretary of the Commonwealth, I have an obligation to protect the personal information that Pennsylvania voters entrust us with, and I take that obligation extremely seriously,” he said.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, in a statement to Votebeat, said the Justice Department “is trying to get us to turn over the private, personal information of more than 8 million state residents.”

State and federal law both implement strict privacy protections, she said, adding that the federal government has not clearly said how it intends to use the data.

Benson, a Democrat, called the Department’s request an “illegal and unconstitutional power grab.”

In a statement, Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, a Democrat, said his office had told the Justice Department it could not provide private voter data without “information about how the information will be used and secured.” Instead of providing that, Simon said, the Justice Department sued.

New York state and New Hampshire officials said they’re reviewing the lawsuits and declined to comment. California officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuits.

Read more Votebeat coverage of the Justice Department’s efforts to obtain state voter rolls:

A guide to understanding the debate over keeping voter rolls ‘clean’, Sept. 4, 2025
After delays, Michigan shares limited voter rolls with U.S. Justice Department, Sept. 3, 2025
Pennsylvania rebuffs U.S. request for voter rolls containing personal data, Aug 21, 2025
Michigan says Justice Department silence is stalling effort to turn over voter records, Aug. 26, 2025
Justice Department widens its request for Pennsylvania election information, Aug. 8, 2025
Justice Department presses Texas for list of registered voters, and the officials who check it, Aug. 14, 2025

Update, Sept. 25: This story was updated to include comment from Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and New York state officials.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org. Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat based in Pennsylvania. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

How do we build public trust in elections?

2025-09-22T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Public trust in elections is the key to turning out voters — and to accepting the results when an election is done. So how do you build it?

Votebeat this week sat down with election expert and Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Charles Stewart; Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein; and Karen Brinson Bell, the former executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections to talk about the factors that drive trust in elections.

The conversation and online forum were moderated by Votebeat Editorial Director Jessica Huseman.

Stewart, who has studied trust extensively as part of his work with MIT’s Election Data and Science Lab, pointed out that for partisan voters, the level of trust tends to shift depending in part on whether their party won the last election.

But a July report Stewart authored about the 2024 election found that overwhelmingly, people are very confident in their own vote being counted correctly, and 60% of respondents feel very confident their local government is counting votes correctly as well. That’s partly because most people have a good experience when they vote, Stewart said.

But just 53% of people have the same level of confidence in elections across their state, and only 37% of respondents reported being very confident in ballot counting nationally, though 46% reported being “somewhat confident.”

“That’s really where voters rely on politicians, people in the media, to interpret what’s happening,” Stewart said Friday. “With the polarization of new media, we’re seeing much more partisan inflection into confidence in elections.”

Bluestein, a Republican election official in a predominantly Democratic city, said he’s seen that very effect. Even before polls closed in 2024, Donald Trump was suggesting without any evidence that there was cheating happening in Philadelphia, Bluestein said, forcing local leaders to defend against that in real time.

“We have to do a lot of work on the ground as election officials to try and counteract that,” he said. “It takes leadership from both sides to have cooler heads and to actually look at what’s really happening.”

The importance of transparency and communication

One forum attendee asked the panelists whether people actually want to know more about elections, and whether more information would improve trust.

By and large, Stewart said, the general public isn’t interested in the minutiae of elections. But those who do care — politically active neighbors, pastors, local precinct captains — tend to be vocal members of their communities who then shape the opinions of others.

Inviting those people in for explanations, facility tours, and other conversations can have tradeoffs, he said, but studies have found that it does bolster local trust.

Brinson Bell, from North Carolina, said efforts to reach people where they are, such as social media hashtags, person-on-the-street style videos, and resources distributed through county officials, were effective in helping people understand the complex issues without requiring them to dive into what would “make for about a 4-inch law book on how you have to conduct elections.”

Another thing officials can do is to make sure people know that many parts of the process are open to the public. Brinson Bell pointed to the provisional ballot process in North Carolina as one example of a transparent process.

Those meetings are public, offering anyone who wants it a look into how local officials determine which provisional ballots should be tallied.

The panelists agreed that direct engagement with the public is a priority in the period leading up to the 2026 midterms.

“The more people you get involved, whether it’s as poll workers or volunteers at the election warehouse, the more people who experience running elections, the better we are,” Bluestein said.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Michigan opens portal for overseas military voters to return ballots electronically

2025-09-17T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Michigan voters serving in the military away from home have a new way to return their ballots starting this week.

With the launch of the Electronic Delivery and Return Portal, these voters will have the option to fill out their ballot and return it all electronically through a secure online portal. It’s a small step for a state that, compared with many others, strictly limits who can return ballots electronically.

Michigan previously required all voters covered by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA to return their ballots only by mail. In 2022, lawmakers approved a change for military voters only, allowing them to return ballots electronically, but implementation was delayed until this year to align with other election law updates.

Sen. Ruth Johnson, a Republican from Holly and a former Michigan secretary of state, introduced the bill in 2021. She said at the time that the mail requirement could be “difficult for military personnel in combat areas or on a ship at sea,” where mail service can be slow or inconsistent.

With the change, she said, these voters could return ballots using “the same secure technology they already use to transmit classified documents.”

In Michigan, only military personnel will have the new option to return ballots electronically. Other UOCAVA voters can still receive ballots electronically but must return them by mail. Only a handful of states — Iowa, Missouri, and Texas — have similar restrictions. Most states offer the same electronic options to all their overseas voters. Some offer them more widely even to voters living in state.

Electronic return reduces the risk of ballots getting lost

Expanding the option for military voters first is a normal first foray into electronic return for states, said Will Adler, senior associate director of the Elections Project at the Bipartisan Policy Center. Michigan and other states require overseas military voters to use their verified electronic signature from the U.S. Department of Defense, so ballots have an added level of security.

Most overseas voters choose to return their ballots by mail, Adler said. But in 2024, a majority of states allowed voters to return ballots electronically.

Electronic return through online portals can especially benefit Americans in places without consistent or secure mail access, where a ballot can easily get lost. Fax and email are also valid options for states under federal law, and these are still the most common electronic options that states offer, but they pose security and technical challenges, too.

Experts say that online portals, like Michigan’s new one, tend to be the most secure electronic option. Cheri Hardmon, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of State, said a portal allows for both security and “administrative efficiencies.”

It’s important to have independent testing on such portals, Adler said, but they tend to start from a stronger place than faxes or email.

“Faxed ballots are most likely not encrypted, while emailed ballots might be,” Adler said. “One benefit that a portal should have over email is the ability to block malicious attachments.”

Other states go further with electronic ballot return

While Michigan is just now implementing the change for military voters, a number of states already extend the option to all UOCAVA voters, and in some cases, even to some voters stateside who could benefit. Research last year from the National Conference of State Legislatures found that more than a dozen states allow voters with disabilities to return their ballots electronically.

Some of those states go even further: Colorado allows voters experiencing natural disasters or personal emergencies to use electronic ballot return in some cases; West Virginia allows for qualified first responders to do the same.

It’s unlikely that electronic ballot return will ever be available for all voters, Adler said. The security measures in place make it a viable option only for a small group of voters — Michigan had 21,910 UOCAVA voters cast ballots in the 2024 general election, according to the Michigan Department of State — or just over one-third of 1% of all ballots cast. To open the option up to everyone could lead to major concerns about the integrity of the system overall.

“People are trying very hard to mitigate [the risks], but there’s just a long road ahead to addressing enough of the problems that I would feel comfortable extending it to a large group of voters,” Adler said. “Most security experts agree with that.”

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Trump leans on voter ID politics as he tests the limits of his power

2025-09-08T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

President Donald Trump is promising another executive order on elections — this time to make voter ID a national requirement. Voter ID requirements have always been popular with Republicans, but now Trump is hinting at imposing one using federal power, in ways even conservatives used to reject.

Elections — I know, I know, I am repeating myself — are managed by the states, with oversight from Congress. There’s a whole clause about it in the Constitution that you can read yourself. Sure, he lacks constitutional authority over elections, but the point may not be policy alone — it’s also politics, and possibly a dangerous power grab.

Democratic leaders typically oppose voter ID requirements as an unnecessary barrier to voting, but the politics around voter ID have always been really good for Republicans. “If you persuade people that you are the party trying to make sure elections are controlled by American citizens and that Democrats are doing everything they can to make sure that illegal immigrants can vote by the busload, that’s a good position to be in,” former Texas state Rep. Todd Smith, a Republican, told me back in 2016, after he was booted from office for not writing a strict enough voter ID bill.

A Gallup poll conducted in October 2024 found that 84% of U.S. adults backed requiring a photo ID to vote. Nearly every Republican (98%) is on board, but even two-thirds of Democrats support it. It’s one of the rare voting policies with such broad bipartisan agreement.

That’s not to say it’s a simple proposition. The logistics of implementing a nationwide requirement would be messy: 36 states currently have some type of ID requirement for voters, but they vary widely on what types of IDs are accepted, for example, and what to do if a voter doesn’t have an ID. How ID requirements are enforced when it comes to mail ballots is even more confusing.

Trump’s social media posts don’t speak to the full details of the policies he plans to put in place.

As for the authority he plans to cite, that’s not clear, either. In a social media post on Aug. 18, he said that “states are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.” That’s false, but it’s revealing.

In an interview on the Sept. 2 episode of “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins,” Cleta Mitchell, the founder of the Election Integrity Network and an advocate for citizenship checks of voters and strict restrictions on mail ballots, among other things, acknowledged that the president’s authority over elections is limited.

But she hinted at a possible path forward: The president can intervene, she said, when “there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States, as I think that we can establish.” She went on to say that the president could be considering exercising emergency powers “to protect the federal elections going forward.”

Since returning to office earlier this year, Trump has repeatedly issued emergency declarations to justify sweeping executive actions in other arenas — including tariffs, immigration measures, and policing the streets of large, Democratic-led American cities. He appears poised to take the same approach to elections, a space where conservatives have long warned about the threats posed by “national ID cards” and federal overreach.

Trump could normalize that, all in the name of “election integrity.”

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

A guide to understanding the debate over keeping voter rolls ‘clean’

2025-09-04T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up to have Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter delivered to your inbox every Saturday.

The federal government’s demands that states turn over their voter rolls and related information highlights longstanding conflicts over how to ensure that only eligible voters are registered without endangering voting rights.

The U.S. Justice Department has sent letters to several states — and plans to send many more — asking them for copies of their voter lists and for detailed information about how they maintain them. The department has said it’s seeking to enforce requirements in federal law that President Donald Trump has ordered it to prioritize.

It has already sued North Carolina, alleging that the state has not been properly verifying voter identity, and sued Orange County, California, for refusing to provide full records for 17 people who have been removed from the rolls in connection with a probe of potential noncitizen voting. And it has threatened to sue or withhold federal funding from other states if they do not comply with their requests for information.

Everyone agrees that a “clean” voter list — cleared of people who have died or moved out of the jurisdiction, or who otherwise aren’t eligible to vote — is good practice. But they differ on how aggressively election officials should move to remove potentially ineligible voters, what exactly federal law requires election officials to do, and how to balance election security with the risk of wrongly removing and disenfranchising eligible voters.

Rhetoric and false claims can make the debate harder to follow. Here’s a guide to understanding the issues and arguments.

What does the law require?

There are two key federal laws that govern the maintenance of voter rolls.

The National Voter Registration Act requires election officials to make a “reasonable effort” to remove voters who become ineligible to vote because they move or die, a process known as list maintenance. The Help America Vote Act, enacted about a decade later, requires states to use a computerized statewide list of every registered voter and assign them a unique identification number. It also requires them to remove duplicated names.

Beyond that, it’s up to state and local governments to set their own policies for how and when to perform list maintenance, and it’s up to federal courts to decide what is “reasonable.” That term isn’t defined in the law, and it’s often where voting rights groups and advocates for stricter list maintenance disagree.

In a recent case in Michigan, for example, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the state’s actions to remove the names of thousands of dead voters from the rolls were sufficient, even though the plaintiff, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, claimed to have identified thousands more on the rolls.

Logan Churchwell, research director at the foundation said in an interview that the court’s decision amounted to giving Michigan an “E for effort.” He said his organization believes there should be a higher standard that would reduce the risk of fraud and administrative error.

For her part, Lata Nott, director of voting rights policy for Campaign Legal Center, said the National Voter Registration Act’s requirement for a “reasonable effort” at maintaining lists is designed to set a floor, but it doesn’t prevent states from creating extreme policies that lead to eligible voters being mistakenly removed.

What is the central issue in the debate?

The main disagreement is over how aggressive list maintenance should be. A recent congressional hearing highlighted the differences between Democrats and Republicans on this question.

House Republicans claimed dirty voter rolls enable fraud, and said ensuring that only eligible voters are on the list increases election security and voter confidence. They dismissed the idea that their efforts are meant to purge certain types of eligible voters from the rolls, such as people of color.

“This is not and should never be a partisan issue,” said Rep. Laurel Lee, a Florida Republican and former secretary of state. “Maintaining accurate voter rolls is fundamental to election security and public trust.”

House Democrats made it clear that they, too, don’t want ineligible voters, such as dead people or noncitizens, on the list. But they questioned why Republicans would want to take any actions that could potentially disenfranchise eligible people, citing recent incidents of state list maintenance actions that led to eligible voters being removed.

“What we do want is every eligible voter gets the chance to vote and their constitutional rights are not infringed upon,” said Rep. Julie Johnson, a Texas Democrat. “And that seems to be a huge distinction.”

Why is it hard to keep voter rolls updated?

It is difficult partly because of the decentralized nature of voting.

The U.S. doesn’t have a national database of eligible voters or citizens. Under federal law, states maintain their own lists. They assign voters the ID number that’s required under the Help America Vote Act, but that number doesn’t have to be connected to any existing federal identification, such as a Social Security number.

To remove voters who were eligible, but aren’t anymore, election officials must have ways to find out when a voter dies, moves to another state, is convicted of a felony, or otherwise becomes ineligible to cast a ballot.

Many election officials get data on address changes from their state’s motor-vehicle department and the U.S. Postal Service, and get death reports from state and federal agencies. Some states allow or mandate the use of other sources, such as obituaries and responses to jury duty summonses.

But there are po1tential gaps and time lags in these systems. When people move, for example, they don’t often tell the election office for their old address to remove them from the rolls.

It’s fairly easy for officials to track in-state moves, because people carry the same state-assigned voter ID number when they go to register in a new location in the state. But it’s harder for officials to find out when someone moves out of state. That requires coordination between states, or more detailed searches through government records.

Many states are members of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a consortium that collects state voter roll data and alerts its members to potentially duplicate registrations across state lines. But two of the largest states, California and New York, are not members. And several Republican states have withdrawn from ERIC in recent years, citing concerns about the program, including about how the organization shares some of its data with researchers.

Do some states have more registered voters than residents?

Statistics like this are often used to back up claims of voter fraud or poor state practices. But there’s a legitimate explanation for this that’s tied to federal and state laws.

In some instances, state laws allow election officials to remove voters from the rolls quickly, such as when they die, or if they respond to a jury duty summons by saying they are not a U.S. citizen.

But when a state finds out a voter may have moved, federal law requires election officials to send a confirmation mailing before removing that person from the rolls. If the voter doesn’t respond, they remain on the roll of registered voters, but are moved to the “inactive” list, and their names must stay there for two federal election cycles before they are removed, unless the state hears from them.

That four-year wait, and a large number of voters on the inactive list, can make the voter roll appear bloated at any given time.

But another reason for the disparity is that population estimates themselves are imprecise, said Chris Fowler, a professor of geography and demography at Penn State University who studies voter rolls and census data.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Communities Survey is currently our best measure of population changes from year to year, Fowler said. But the uncertainty in the national population count is about 10 million residents, he said — roughly equal to the population of Michigan.

Some use the disparities between the numbers to cast doubt on the accuracy of elections and raise alarm about voter fraud, such as Elon Musk with his misleading claim that Michigan had “more registered voters than eligible citizens.” His numbers included inactive voters as if they were eligible voters. But before those voters could cast a ballot, they would have to correct their voting record to prove eligibility, most commonly by showing documentation proving they still live in the jurisdiction.

How ‘dirty’ are the voter rolls?

Some of the most cited data available on this comes from more than a decade ago, and has helped inspire efforts at improvement since then. But those efforts have run into challenges.

In 2012, a research study by the Pew Center on the States found that more than 2.75 million people were registered to vote in more than one state, and there were more than 1.8 million dead people whose names were still on the voter rolls. These and other findings “underscore the need for states to improve accuracy, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency,” Pew said.

There have been multiple attempts to create systems allowing states to share data to help with voter list maintenance. That’s a difficult task, because any such effort must comply with state and federal laws governing data use and privacy. Officials must also cross-check data from various sources, using enough different data points to ensure that the matches are accurate, and that a person with the same name as another isn’t mistakenly removed as a duplicate.

One prior program, the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program, was ultimately shut down under a court settlement because it did not do enough to protect sensitive voter data. It was also found to be highly inaccurate, often incorrectly identifying registrations as duplicates because of poor matching techniques.

After Pew’s study, the nonprofit provided funding to help launch ERIC, to try to screen out duplicate voter registrations across state lines. Since then, ERIC has helped states identify hundreds of thousands of voters each year who have moved across state lines, and tens of thousands of voters who died. But in part because some Republican states have left the program, only half of states now participate, leaving a lot of gaps.

Some states use more data sources and perform checks more frequently than others. In the latest federal survey of election officials, for example, about 30% of states said they do not use National Change of Address reports from the U.S. Postal Service or data from motor vehicle agencies to identify potentially ineligible voters.

Do poorly maintained voter rolls allow for more fraud?

Generally speaking, removing a voter who has moved prevents them from wrongly voting in their old voting jurisdiction, and removing a voter who has died prevents another person from fraudulently casting a ballot in their name.

That said, prosecutions for double voting and voting for others are rare, and Votebeat could not find any studies showing that states that do a better job of cleaning voter rolls have less voter fraud.

The Heritage Foundation’s database of voter fraud across all states since 1982 includes 174 convictions for duplicate voting, 99 cases of noncitizen voting, and two cases of someone voting under a dead person’s name.

But Churchwell, of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said the number of prosecutions does not properly measure how much fraud occurs. Rather, he said, it indicates the state’s propensity to prosecute. “I doubt you’ll find research showing where a state is simultaneously terrible at list maintenance yet zealous with prosecutions,” he said.

Are there noncitizens on the voter rolls?

Yes, but states that have looked have not found them in large numbers.

Audits in multiple states have found small numbers of noncitizens on the rolls, few of whom had actually cast ballots, and there are no known instances of noncitizens voting in large enough numbers to influence the outcome of an election.

The threat of noncitizen voting has become a prominent talking point for Republicans, driving their efforts to pass proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters. But even in Republican-led states, officials who have recently tried to find noncitizens on the rolls have reported only small numbers.

In an audit last year, for example, the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office found 20 noncitizens out of 8.2 million registered voters. Nine of them had voted in prior elections, the office found. In Ohio, only one of the 641 cases of noncitizen voting that Secretary of State Frank LaRose referred for prosecution resulted in a voter fraud charge.

In Texas, which has more than 18.6 million registered voters, the Secretary of State’s Office identified 581 noncitizens from 2021 to August of 2024. The state referred 33 potential noncitizens who voted in the 2024 election to the attorney general for investigation. The state also is investigating potential cases from the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.

In Michigan, where activists are working to get a proof-of-citizenship requirement enacted, a review this year by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office found 15 noncitizens who voted in the November 2024 election.

In Arizona, which requires proof of citizenship to vote in state and local elections, Jesse Richman, a political science professor at Old Dominion University, identified at least 2,331 registered voters who he believes are highly likely to be noncitizens. He studied the state’s voter rolls as an expert defense witness for a case challenging the state’s proof of citizenship laws. Richman said those people could have become naturalized citizens since last updating their license, but the ID they used when registering to vote or updating their registration was a noncitizen ID.

On Aug. 28, the U.S. Justice Department announced the indictment of a Canadian citizen charged with registering to vote and voting in federal elections in North Carolina in 2022 and 2024.

Are there dead people on the voter rolls?

Yes, there are voters who have died but whose names are still on the rolls.

But claims about the number of such voters often turn out to be inaccurate.

In 2012, for example, South Carolina’s State Election Commission reviewed 207 cases that the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles had referred to as potential cases of ballots being cast in the names of dead voters. Of those, the commission was able to conclude that 197 did not involve dead voters — instead, they were either clerical errors, or identified through bad matches. There wasn’t enough information on the remaining 10 cases to make any determination.

States that are members of ERIC receive reports about voters who may have died while out of state, and the service has identified about 644,000 voters who died over the last 13 years and whose names needed to be removed from the list. But some state laws may limit how states use that information.

Pennsylvania, for example, is an ERIC member, but state law allows officials to remove the names of dead voters only if they learn of it through the state’s health agency or an obituary. Election officials in the state, including Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, have advocated for that to change.

Can list maintenance measures lead to eligible voters being purged?

Yes. In Texas, some of the people removed from the rolls last year were eligible citizens who did not respond to a mailed notice seeking more information about their status, an investigation by Votebeat, The Texas Tribune, and ProPublica found.

And that’s the concern that voting rights advocates have about states that take aggressive steps to clean their lists, especially close to an election. Two of the most recent cases were in Alabama and Virginia, just before the November 2024 election.

Alabama inactivated the registrations of 2,074 eligible voters whom it had flagged as noncitizens based on whether they had been issued federal immigration ID numbers. And Virginia also removed eligible voters from its rolls as it attempted to purge noncitizens based on information from its motor vehicle department, CNN and NPR found.

This is why federal law has safeguards on when states can remove potentially ineligible voters, such as the rule that election officials cannot conduct systematic voter removals within 90 days of an election, Nott with Campaign Legal Center said.

“The more aggressive your list maintenance laws are,” she said, “the more likely you are probably going to be purging people who are eligible to vote.”

Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

After delays, Michigan shares limited voter rolls with U.S. Justice Department

2025-09-03T18:00:03+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

Michigan shared a limited piece of the state’s voter roll with the U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday, arguing that sharing any personally identifying information would violate several state and federal laws.

The transfer of data in response to two DOJ requests for the qualified voter file followed a brief delay while Michigan Department of State officials wondered how to securely share the information with the federal government.

“While Michigan will provide QVF voter data, some specific data you request is exempt from disclosure under Michigan Election Law,” Khyla Craine, MDOS’s chief legal officer, wrote in the response letter included with the rolls.

The Justice Department’s initial letter to Michigan requested the voter rolls, a list of election officials responsible for maintaining them, and answers to several questions about the state’s response to a survey conducted by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. A subsequent request from the DOJ asked that the rolls also include information such as Social Security numbers.

Additional responses to other questions are forthcoming, Crain wrote.

Crain’s letter explains that sharing personal identifying information would violate the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Driver Privacy Protection Act, two federal laws that dictate how data requested by the federal government can be collected and shared.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Votebeat.

MDOS was able to finally share its roll of more than 8 million voters through the DOJ’s secure file-sharing system, called Justice Enterprise File Sharing system, or JEFS. The system is housed on Box, a commercial file-sharing website. It specializes in secure collaboration, according to the website’s main page.

To share information, MDOS needed federal officials to grant it access to the platform. But an email inviting state officials to collaborate on JEFS did not make clear that the invitation was from the federal government, according to images of the message obtained by Votebeat. The message came from “noreply@box.com” and — aside from a small note at the bottom referencing JEFS — it largely resembled an attempt at phishing, or stealing sensitive information.

Angela Benander, spokesperson for MDOS, told Votebeat last week that the DOJ didn’t alert the department in advance that it would send a Box link. That delayed the transfer of files. She added that the department also needed confirmation from the state’s Department of Technology, Budget and Management that using the link complied with state security policies.

“It would be one thing if they sent an email first to say, ‘Look for this email, it will have a box.com link,’” she said. “But instead, they just sent a random email from a random person with no notification at all.”

Michigan was one of several states that received requests for their complete voter rolls as the Justice Department follows through on President Donald Trump’s executive order to prioritize voter roll maintenance. Some states have complied in a limited way, like Michigan — Pennsylvania, for example, made similar legal arguments — while others, such as Maine, rejected the federal government’s request outright.

Several states that responded did not encounter the same issue with the file transfer as Michigan because they used different methods to share their data. The Colorado Secretary of State’s office, for instance, told Votebeat it transmitted the information using its own in-house file sharing system; Florida officials simply mailed a disk with the files to the DOJ, the same way they would share them with anyone who requested the information, a spokesperson for the office said.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

What to expect at the voting booth as Texas officials respond to Trump’s executive order

2025-09-02T10:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.

After years of using a touchscreen machine to mark their ballots, voters in at least three Texas counties will be asked instead to make their selections directly on the paper ballots, by hand, starting in November.

Election officials in Collin, Williamson, and Bastrop counties said they’re proactively changing their voting procedures and equipment in response to an executive order from President Donald Trump in March that sought to mostly ban voting equipment that uses barcodes or QR codes on paper ballots to speed up vote counting.

Some other provisions in the executive order have been blocked by the courts, but this one has not. The order instructed the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which crafts the certification guidelines that most states rely on for their voting equipment, to amend the guidelines to prohibit such systems and “take appropriate action” to review and rescind previously issued certifications based on prior standards.

U.S. EAC Commissioner Donald Palmer told state election directors at a July conference that “there won’t be mass decertification of systems” in the near future. Still, Trump’s order has sparked questions from the public and uncertainty about the use of different kinds of voting machines.

Election officials have concerns, too, about the potential cost and complexity of having to switch voting systems. Some Texas counties, and officials in states including Ohio, California, and West Virginia, are opting to make changes now, in a year without a federal election, hoping to prevent disruption closer to the 2026 midterms.

“Every election is important, but you would never want to try such a big change for a primary election,” said Kaleb Breaux, election administrator in Collin County, north of Dallas, which is spending $2.3 million on the switch. “You want it to be a known process that your voters and people in your county trust.”

His department is planning to host events next month to give voters a chance to familiarize themselves with new equipment.

Touchscreen voting machines, barcodes and the Trump order

In most Texas counties — including the most populous — voters make their selections on touchscreen machines known as ballot-marking devices. At check-in, they receive a blank paper ballot that is inserted into the ballot marking device. Once a voter makes their selections on screen, the machine prints them out on the ballot for the voter to review. Then the voter inserts the ballot into the tabulation machine to be counted.

The counties potentially affected by Trump’s executive order use ballot-marking devices made by Elections Systems & Software, one of two state-certified voting system vendors. In addition to marking the ballots with the voter’s choices, the ES&S equipment prints a machine-readable code reflecting those choices that is used to speed up tabulation.

Critics of such systems have argued for years that voters have no way of knowing whether the code accurately reflects their choices, even though the results are audited.

ES&S told Votebeat that it is developing new equipment to meet the latest iteration of federal guidelines, and that it won’t use codes. Equipment from Hart Intercivic, the other state-certified vendor, doesn’t use machine-readable codes.

Both vendors also give counties the option of using paper ballots that voters mark by hand. Those systems still use tabulator machines to scan the ballots and count the votes.

Last month, Texas Elections Director Christina Adkins told a group of election officials that she’s waiting to see what action the federal EAC takes on certification of voting equipment in response to Trump’s executive order. Any change to the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines would immediately affect Texas’ certified voting systems, which must follow the federal guidelines under state law.

Adkins said voters across the state have been speaking at public meetings and have asked legislators about the part of the president’s executive order on machine-readable codes and paper ballots. She asked election officials to be prepared to answer questions from voters in their communities with accurate information about the order and how the state plans to respond.

Meanwhile, a Republican-led push to ditch all electronic voting equipment — including the tabulators — and hand count ballots instead, has made inroads in Texas. Gillespie County in the Texas Hill Country hand-counted thousands of ballots in the 2024 primary, but had to fix a series of errors in the results, which couldn’t easily be audited for accuracy because the ballots couldn’t be scanned by machines.

Different methods of voting in Texas

About 80% of Texas’ 254 counties use machines to mark voters’ choices on paper ballots. In the rest, including Denton County in North Texas and Cameron County in South Texas, voters mark the paper ballots by hand, and then put them in the tabulator for counting. (Even these counties must make at least one electronic voting machine available in each voting location to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act.) .

Two small Texas counties — Limestone and Foard — don’t use paper ballots at all, but state law will require them to by next year.

Paper ballots, whether marked by a hand or a machine, are typically considered the gold standard for election security. They allow voters to check their selections before casting their ballot, and create a physical record for audits and recounts.

But is one way of marking ballots better than the other? Some election officials say that with hand-marked ballots, it’s harder to determine voter intent if there’s a doubt, or for a scanner to read the voter’s selections. On the other hand, some say hand-marked ballots allow voters to check for errors right away, rather than having to wait until they’re done voting and their ballot is printed out. And lines can move faster if people don’t have to wait for a machine.

Collin County prepares for the changes

In Collin County, a Republican-led community with 750,000 registered voters, the switch away from ballot-marking devices follows years of lobbying by activists urging the commissioner court to eliminate voting machines, even though the system has gotten high marks from the Texas Secretary of State’s Office.

A measure to make the change failed last year, but county officials approved a new one in June.

Trump’s executive order “was a bit of a catalyst for the court to revisit this move,” said Kaleb Breaux, the Collin County elections director.

As a result, 1,500 ballot-marking devices, which the county has used since 2019, will be put in storage. The county will still use about 300 of them at polling locations to comply with federal law on disability access. Trump’s executive order allows leeway for that, as long as the machines produce a voter-verifiable paper record.

The $2.3 million the county is spending includes the purchase of voting booths, printers, laptops, and other election materials. Breaux said the voting booths take up less space than the voting machines, so polling locations can accommodate more voters than before.

However, he wants to encourage voters to take their time marking their ballots in November to avoid problems tallying later. “Make sure they’re bubbling everything in completely,” he said. “And if they mess up their ballot, don’t be afraid to ask for another one.”.

Breaux said he hopes the new method of voting can help boost voter trust.

“I think what we had worked well,” he said, “but I also think this is going to work just as well for our voters and our workers.”

Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org

Ken Paxton poised to get wider power to prosecute Texas election crime cases

2025-08-27T18:59:29+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.

The Texas House on Tuesday sent a measure to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk that would let the attorney general’s office independently prosecute election-related crimes, years after the state’s highest criminal court ruled the office could not do so without an invitation from local prosecutors.

Members of the Legislature’s lower chamber voted 85–54 to pass Senate Bill 12, from Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, and Republican Rep. Matt Shaheen of Plano, after a roughly hourlong debate that centered on the constitutionality of the measure.

Four years ago, the all-GOP Court of Criminal Appeals ruled the attorney general’s office could not unilaterally prosecute election crimes — such as voter fraud — due to the separation of powers clause of the Texas Constitution.

Democratic lawmakers who opposed SB 12 grilled Shaheen about the bill’s constitutionality, considering the ruling. Shaheen insisted that the bill would “fix” the ruling from the state’s highest court for criminal matters.

A separate proposal to put the measure before voters as a constitutional amendment failed to reach the required two-thirds threshold.

“By passing SB 12, the Legislature ensures that Texas election laws are fully enforceable and that the criminal violations can be prosecuted,” Shaheen said on the House floor Tuesday. “This legislation strengthens public confidence in Texas elections and safeguards the integrity of our democratic process.”

Battle between Attorney General Ken Paxton and court

The bill marks the latest in a long-running effort to give the attorney general’s office the authority that the office’s current leader, Ken Paxton, used in Texas in the wake of the 2020 election, which he unsuccessfully and baselessly argued was stolen from Donald Trump in other states.

Paxton was stopped by the Court of Criminal Appeals when it ruled that he must get permission from local county prosecutors to pursue election cases. Last year he successfully helped unseat three judges who had ruled against him.

The initial decision unleashed a political firestorm fueled by GOP leaders — Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick among them — who pressured the court to reconsider. The court did, and affirmed its finding that the separation-of-powers clause of the Texas Constitution allows the attorney general to step into a criminal prosecution — election-related or otherwise — only at the invitation of the local district or county attorney.

During this year’s regular session, the latest push to undo that ruling stalled out due to a disagreement between both chambers.

Abbott then asked lawmakers to reconsider during the current overtime special session, specifically calling for a constitutional amendment, which required two-thirds approval from each chamber and voter approval on the statewide ballot. That measure, which would have asked voters to amend the state constitution, failed to clear the House Tuesday when it fell 16 votes short of the 100 it needed to reach the two-thirds mark.

The constitutional amendment would have established that the attorney general has concurrent jurisdiction with each county or district attorney to prosecute state election crimes.

But the Republican-controlled chamber sent a bill to Abbott’s desk that amends the state’s election code to give the attorney general jurisdiction. That measure needed only a simple majority because it does not involve a change to the Texas Constitution.

Few convictions in Texas election crime cases

Paxton and his political allies say the attorney general’s office should have the power to investigate and prosecute allegations of voter fraud because they say district attorneys in the state’s largest and bluest counties won’t properly pursue such cases. After the Court of Criminal Appeals ruling, Paxton called on the Legislature to “right this wrong,” arguing cases of fraud would otherwise go unpunished.

Evidence of widespread voter fraud remains scant.

While Paxton’s office has opened more than 300 investigations of suspected crimes by voters and election officials, they have successfully convicted only a handful. Many cases crumbled after the ruling, and those who were targeted have described relentless persecution from the state.

Though the constitutional amendment failed Tuesday, Republican lawmakers have argued they can grant the attorney general prosecution power without tweaking the state Constitution.

Hughes, the senator who carried the prosecution bill in the upper chamber, made that case last month, pointing to a state statute that says the attorney general “shall perform other duties as may be required by law.” He said his bill would pass constitutional muster because it adds to those duties by mandating that the attorney general “shall” prosecute election fraud, rather than making it optional, as in the law that was struck down in 2021.

Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the passage of SB 12 and failure of the constitutional amendment he requested.

Heather Honey, who questioned the 2020 election, is appointed to Homeland Security election post

2025-08-26T23:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat’s free national newsletter here.

A prominent election activist whose research questioned the 2020 election results is now working in an election-related leadership position at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Heather Honey is now listed as a deputy assistant secretary for election integrity, according to an organizational chart on the DHS website. Her hiring was first reported by Democracy Docket. Deputy assistant secretaries are often involved in drafting executive orders and crafting policies, and serve as liaisons to the White House and the National Security Council, ProPublica reported.

Honey has been a prominent figure in the conservative election integrity movement since President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.

Honey and DHS did not immediately respond to emails from Votebeat requesting comment.

Honey’s work, cited by Trump, concluded there were more votes than voters in Pennsylvania in the November 2020 election, but the Pennsylvania Department of State pushed back on her figure and methodology at the time and told Votebeat the method of analysis is “not an accurate way to reconcile votes cast to the number of voters who participated in any individual election.” Honey has defended her work as accurate. She has filed a lawsuit against Votebeat claiming that its past reporting about her is defamatory.

Public documents reported by the Arizona Republic show Honey’s firm also was a subcontractor for the Cyber Ninjas during the partisan review of Maricopa County’s 2020 ballots ordered by Arizona Senate Republicans.

She led PA Fair Elections, a Pennsylvania group that advocates on elections and is associated with the national Election Integrity Network.

Her appointment comes as state and local officials have repeatedly voiced concerns about cuts and changes to DHS programs to secure elections.

Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.

Erie, Pennsylvania, nuns who stood up to claims of election fraud win national award

2025-08-26T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

As the 2024 presidential election approached, tensions were high, and activists were, once again, hunting for fraud.

Cliff Maloney, a Republican activist working to get GOP voters to return their mail ballots, said on the social network X that one of his door-to-door canvassers had discovered an address in Erie, Pennsylvania, that had no residents but 53 voters registered to it.

“Turns out it’s the Benedictine Sisters of Erie and NO ONE lives there,” he wrote in a post that went viral, adding that he would not let “Dems count illegal votes.”

But that wasn’t true. And Maloney found himself being called out by the nuns, who didn’t appreciate being accused of fraud.

“We do live at Mount Saint Benedict Monastery and a simple web search would alert him to our active presence in a number of ministries in Erie,” Sister Stephanie Schmidt, of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, said in a statement, calling Maloney’s post “blatantly false.”

Now, the sisters are being honored with an award from the National Association of Secretaries of State for their efforts to push back against misinformation. The 2025 Margaret Chase Smith American Democracy Award honors recipients for “individual acts of political courage, uncommon character and selfless action in the realm of public service.”

Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, who is not related to Sister Stephanie Schmidt, nominated the sisters.

“The Sisters thoughtfully confronted the baseless claims and used their time in the spotlight to warn the public that ‘a free republic depends … on a discerning and conscientious citizenry who do not unquestioningly accept the word of anyone who has a social media platform,’” Secretary Schmidt said in a statement.

The award will be presented at the 2026 NASS winter conference in Washington, D.C.

Votebeat and Spotlight PA recently spoke with Sister Linda Romey, director of communications for the monastery, about its response to the accusations and the lessons of the experience.

Romey told Votebeat and Spotlight PA that in addition to the statement it put out, the monastery invited Maloney to visit — an invitation that still stands — but he has yet to come.

This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity:

How did you first become aware of Maloney’s post? What was your reaction?

I came into work, and we have a very large email list and have friends across the country. So people who know who we are and what we stand for saw this post, and they were emailing me and Stephanie Schmidt, who was our prioress, our elected leader at the time. … So Stephanie called and she said, ‘How should we respond?’ And I said I think we should put out a press release and address this.

Pennsylvania was a battleground state, a very key battleground state in the election, and Erie County was key to Pennsylvania. So we knew that everything here would be scrutinized, and in addition to just wanting to counter what was blatantly false, we wanted to contest that. But we also knew that if Kamala (Harris) were to win the election and then her victory be contested, we didn’t want to become any part of that saying, you know, here’s 50 some false votes that the Democrats came up with and because nobody lives here. We wanted on record that we contested the falsehood immediately.

What kind of response did you get?

Overwhelming support, overwhelming. We don’t have an X account, so friends were telling us how the numbers were climbing on the views and the shares, or whatever they call them at X, but even on our social media pages, the support just continued to grow, and then we started getting phone calls. We had more than 25 media outlets contact us over the course of a couple of weeks.

Secretary Schmidt called and spoke with our prioress, Stephanie Schmidt, and offered his support, as did our local election officials. We were in touch with them, and they did support us. Our local mayor knows us and supports us. And other local political figures were behind us also. They all know us, and they know what we do in the city of Erie, and they spoke on our behalf. So yes, we were very, very well supported.

What lessons do you hope others will take away from your experience?

To stand up for truth. Not to back down … if you fall victim to this. But the other thing is, read with conscious discernment. Everybody needs to look at something and read something and then do the necessary background work to know whether or not something should be believed. Because it seems to me that as soon as something is out on social media, it’s taken for fact or for truth, and things are very rarely just that black and white. There’s always room for question, for more information.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Trump’s latest pivot and the endless battle over mail ballots

2025-08-25T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

President Donald Trump has long criticized the integrity of mail ballots. But leading up to the 2024 election, Republicans spent millions of dollars encouraging supporters to vote early, including by mail, hoping to bank votes ahead of Election Day. Even Trump encouraged his supporters to use them.

“ABSENTEE VOTING, EARLY VOTING, AND ELECTION DAY VOTING ARE ALL GOOD OPTIONS,” Trump, then the Republican nominee, posted on social media in April 2024.

That embrace didn’t last. In a new social media post this week that was full of false claims about elections — and signaled solidarity on the topic with Russian President Vladimir Putin — Trump promised to “lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” among other things, and wrote that an executive order “to help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections” is coming.

Trump is only the latest to swing between support and skepticism of mail voting, a method that has divided the parties for decades.

Mail voting has been in use in American elections since the Civil War, though even then, as now, there were differences in how states administered it. Today, all states allow some form of it, and 28 states allow voters to cast ballots by mail for any reason. Eight states, including Republican-dominated Utah, as well as Washington D.C. allow all elections to be conducted entirely by mail.

A bipartisan 2005 report from a commission headed by former President Jimmy Carter, a Democrat, and former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, a Republican, concluded that absentee ballots were the greatest potential source of fraud, a finding often cited by critics of the method.

Voter fraud happens, but experts agree that it’s exceedingly rare and leaves a long paper trail. Election officials have multiple safeguards designed to catch any attempt.

Since 2008, an MIT Election Lab project called the Survey of the Performance of American Elections conducted after every federal election has asked voters whether they support running all elections by mail. Republican support was typically flat, while growing numbers of Democrats and independents supported the idea. Then, in 2020, when the pandemic supercharged mail ballot use, Democratic support spiked, while Republican support declined.

The partisan gap shrank considerably in 2024, the survey found, even as mail ballot use dropped from pandemic-fueled heights. But it’s still a bigger gap than it was before the pandemic. The survey also found Republicans are more likely than Democrats to believe that voter fraud, including absentee ballot fraud, happens frequently.

Public opinion, of course, shifts. As Votebeat has reported, Republicans in 1991 made Arizona one of the first states in the country to allow voting by mail with no excuse, and the option has been wildly popular. But by 2022, against the backdrop of Trump’s claims about mail-in ballots, Republicans in the state were trying (so far unsuccessfully) to eliminate the option.

Even Carter and the Carter Center urged states to expand mail voting in 2020 during the pandemic, stressing the commission’s earlier conclusion that fraud was rare when safeguards were in place.

It isn’t clear what steps Trump will take to attempt to limit use of mail ballots. Under the Constitution, states have authority over the “time, place and manner of elections.” Congress also has some authority. Any attempt by Trump to eliminate mail voting by fiat would be quickly challenged in the courts, and legal experts stress it would be unlikely to succeed. Federal judges have already blocked key provisions of an executive order on elections Trump issued in March, citing his lack of authority over elections.

Comments from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt this week signaled a legislative effort could be in the works.

“The White House continues to work on this, and when Congress comes back to Washington I’m sure there will be many discussions with our friends on Capitol Hill, and also our friends in state legislatures across the country, to ensure that we’re protecting the integrity of the vote for the American people,” she said.

Ultimately, the fight isn’t just in the courts — it’s in public perception. And there, the verdict is far from settled.

Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.

Why Trump’s proposed changes to the census could have lasting effects beyond elections

2025-08-18T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

President Donald Trump wants to run a new census before next year’s midterms — and leave undocumented immigrants out of the count. That wouldn’t just reshape political maps. It would warp the data that governments, businesses, and researchers rely on for the work they do and the investments they make. An incomplete or rushed count means flawed decisions, with consequences that last far beyond one election.

The census gives the government its most complete snapshot of the country. The federal government uses it to decide where to send billions of dollars for Medicaid, food assistance, school lunches, and disaster relief. States use it to plan hospitals and roads. Businesses choose store locations based on it. Public health officials track disease outbreaks with it, and emergency managers map evacuation routes using it. Even insurance companies rely on it to set rates.

If we give the Census Bureau less time to plan and execute what amounts to an extraordinary logistical challenge, we undermine its ability to do this work reliably and well. And if we undercount certain communities — a risk that grows if the process gets shortened or harder to join — those places lose representation in Congress and the Electoral College. They also lose money and services they would otherwise qualify for.

What Trump is calling for with the census fits into a bigger pattern of changes in how the federal government collects data. Trump’s 2026 budget axes funding for NASA satellites that track carbon and monitor plant health — tools scientists use to study climate change, plan for disasters, and help farmers know when to plant. Kill the satellites, and we’re flying blind on what’s happening to our planet.

Last month, after a weaker-than-expected jobs report, Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer. He claimed the numbers were wrong but offered no proof. Economists warn that moves like that can shake confidence in the agency’s independence and make people doubt whether they can trust official jobs and economic data. He’s appointed a new head of the agency that he likes better.

Together, these examples show how politically motivated decisions can shape — and sometimes distort — the data we all rely on. That matters because so many everyday but critical decisions depend on accurate information. Grocery supply chains use population numbers to predict demand. Emergency managers need precise maps of where people live to plan evacuations. Cities and states depend on complete counts to qualify for funding.

Other presidents have clashed with federal data too. George W. Bush faced accusations of downplaying or doctoring reports on climate science, and other administrations have shifted how unemployment or inflation is measured. But those were narrower fights. Trump’s approach covers more ground and acts more directly. He is proposing to change the census, cutting climate satellites, and intervening in jobs data all at once. Some of that may aim to limit information that could work against him or to align the numbers with his preferred message. Cutting certain data programs also makes it harder to measure the effects of policy choices later.

When politics starts shaping how data is collected or shared, the damage doesn’t end with one administration — it lingers. Once trust in official statistics is broken, it can take years to rebuild, and in the meantime, every plan and policy is built on shaky ground. Keeping these systems accurate and independent isn’t a partisan issue; it’s what keeps communities safe, the economy steady, and government accountable to the facts.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Trump’s call for a new census: Could it happen? Would it be constitutional?

2025-08-14T09:05:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat’s free national newsletter here.

Just as he did during his first term in office, President Donald Trump is trying to reshape the census to serve his political goals.

This time, he’s calling for an extraordinary mid-decade population count that would be used for apportioning congressional seats, and that would explicitly exclude undocumented immigrants. He announced his intentions where many of his policy pronouncements start out, on social media.

It’s another effort by his administration to influence redistricting and congressional apportionment in ways that could benefit the GOP, though it’s not clear what the outcome of such a census would be. Democratic-leaning states like California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois have large numbers of undocumented immigrants, but so do some Republican strongholds like Texas and Florida.

Trump’s previous attempt to change census procedures involved the scheduled 2020 census, and ran into a wall at the Supreme Court. This time, he’s trying to do it mid-decade, and for the purposes of apportionment, which would run into many more obstacles.

Here, we address some key questions about Trump’s proposal: the legality, the logistics, and the political strategy driving it.

Can a president order a mid-decade census?

Not unilaterally. The 1790 Census Act governs the census and gives authority over this process to the secretary of commerce and the Census Bureau. Certainly, the president has influence over this part of the executive branch. But Congress still controls the pursestrings and decisions over timing. A process like the one Trump is proposing must be authorized by law and funded through congressional appropriation, which Trump doesn’t control.

What does the constitution say about excluding undocumented residents?

There’s not a lot of ambiguity in the Constitution’s language about the census, or the way the Supreme Court has interpreted it: A census used to determine congressional seats needs to count everyone.

The 14th Amendment requires that the “whole number of persons” residing in the United States should be counted — it doesn’t mention immigration status, or any other condition. The phrase “whole number of persons” was written to replace the Three-Fifths Clause in Article 1 (which said enslaved persons were to be counted as three-fifths of a person for the purposes of apportionment), and was deliberately written to be inclusive, experts say.

Historical interpretations of this amendment reaffirm that. In 2016, Texas residents challenged the state’s use of total population, rather than just citizens, in deciding how to draw districts of roughly equal size, the process that follows the census and reapportionment of seats among states. The Supreme Court unanimously upheld a ruling that total population was the correct standard, based on the 14th Amendment, saying it “promotes equitable and effective representation.”

“What constitutional history and our prior decisions strongly suggest, settled practice confirms,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the court. Switching to apportionment based on eligible voters “would upset a well-functioning approach to districting that all 50 States and countless local jurisdictions have followed for decades, even centuries.”

How feasible would a new census be at this time?

It would be very expensive, if it could be done at all, and especially difficult to pull off on Trump’s timeline for influencing next year’s midterm elections. Election administrators, campaigns, and parties have already begun preparations for those elections based on figures from the previous census.

It’s difficult to pull off even when both parties want to do it.

In 1975, there was bipartisan interest in conducting a mid-decade census in order to provide better data for federal programs. Congress passed legislation authorizing a census for data collection only, not for congressional apportionment. But it didn’t get done. It proved too expensive, and the Census Bureau lacked the time and the infrastructure.

Getting Trump’s politically motivated proposal would have a tougher time just getting through Congress. And any attempt to politicize the census would be fraught. The data collected and compiled by the Census Bureau informs not just apportionment and redistricting, but many other public and private endeavors, from emergency planning and housing construction to wildlife conservation and school lunch programs. People and institutions that depend on census data want the most complete picture possible, not one clouded by political motives.

What legal obstacles does Trump face?

Beyond the statutory and constitutional limitations we’ve already talked about, the Census Act limits the White House’s ability to do what Trump is trying to do. And the president has no authority to compel states to draw new maps even if he’s successful at forcing a new census.

Along the way, judging by past disputes, we should expect a deluge of lawsuits that would diminish any chance of a census, reapportionment, and redistricting all getting done in time for next year’s midterms.

Is this related to the current redistricting effort in Texas?

Both reflect efforts by Trump to manipulate regularly scheduled democratic processes for partisan motives.

Redistricting after the census every 10 years has long been a politically driven process, where the party in charge at the state level typically tries to solidify — and perpetuate — its advantage. Texas Republicans did so in 2021, and as we’ve reported, Trump wants them to do it again this year, midway through the cycle, in an attempt to create five new Republican-leaning congressional districts. That way, Trump and his allies figure, Republicans would have a better chance of retaining their narrow majority in the U.S. House after the midterms, when the party in power typically loses seats.

Other states are threatening to do the same, to either help Republicans or try to thwart them.

A midcycle census would effectively broaden this battle for political power to all states. The carve-out for undocumented immigrants in population counts would shift political influence away from large Democratic strongholds, like California, New York, and Illinois, though it could also affect some GOP-dominated states that have large and growing populations of undocumented immigrants.

Hasn’t Trump tried something like this before?

During his first administration, Trump sought to influence the 2020 Census by calling for it to include a citizenship question. His explanation then was that the data was necessary to enforce the Voting Rights Act. But others saw it as a first step toward ultimately excluding noncitizens from the population counts used to apportion congressional seats and diminishing the power of states with large immigrant populations.

The Supreme Court ultimately blocked the administration’s effort, ruling that it lacked the authority to push through the change, and the 2020 census went out without the citizenship question. But immigrant rights groups complained that the publicity over that dispute may have compromised the data anyway. They raised concerns that noncitizens, whether they were in the country legally or not, would be afraid to respond to the census. The court battle also compressed the preparation time for the census, leaving less time for people to complete the surveys.

In July 2020, while the census was underway, the White House issued a presidential memorandum directing the Census Bureau to exclude noncitizens in the count it issues for apportionment, even though it had no citizenship question from which to sort out this number. Multiple Democratic-led states sued, arguing that the policy was unworkable and unconstitutional. The courts agreed, and blocked the plan from moving forward.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

Justice Department presses Texas for list of registered voters, and the officials who check it

2025-08-14T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.

Texas’ top election official has received a U.S. Justice Department request for access to the state’s list of registered voters, another in a series of letters going out to states demanding information about voter rolls and election procedures.

Along with the voter roll, the department’s Aug. 7 letter to Texas asks for information on how the state is complying with federal requirements for voter list maintenance. It specifically requests information on canceled voter records, records of noncitizens removed from the rolls, voter history, and a list of state and local election officials responsible for voter list maintenance since November 2022. The department gave the state 14 days to respond.

Christina Adkins, director of the election division at the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, told Votebeat that the state was notified in July that such a request was coming.

Under the Trump administration, the Justice Department has been pushing states to turn over voter registration information on the grounds that it’s needed to support enforcement of election law. It has sent similar requests to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Maine, and others.

The information requests are expected ultimately to go to all 50 states. Some experts and state officials have raised concerns over the legality of the effort and whether it could compromise voter privacy protections. Maine state officials declined to turn over the data.

Adkins told a group of Texas election officials during a training session in Round Rock on Tuesday that her agency has been in contact with the Justice Department. She said Texas has informed the department that it can’t yet provide the voter roll, because it’s shifting to an upgraded version of its voter registration management system, known as Texas Election Administration Management, or TEAM.

Most Texas counties use TEAM to manage their voter rolls and have been testing and training on the upgraded system.

“At some point, the state will have to provide that information to the DOJ. But I’m not doing it yet,” Adkins told election officials. “I don’t believe that we have what they’re asking for with respect to this list, because we are in this transition period,” with some registrations still waiting to be processed and work on list maintenance still pending.

Adkins told election officials Tuesday that the state would handle the request from the Justice Department the same way it would a public-records request, as several other states have.

But Justin Levitt — a professor at Loyola Law School and former DOJ official — said the federal government faces a stricter standard in accessing state records than members of the public.

While federal law allows the public to request certain election records, he said, that does not extend to personally identifiable information, which courts have afforded added protection. Sensitive data, such as information about domestic violence survivors or public officials, is also protected under state law, and courts have repeatedly affirmed these limits.

Levitt said several states misinterpret DOJ requests as standard public-records inquiries, but in reality, “what the DOJ can get, in this circumstance, is less” because of restrictions under the Privacy Act of 1974.

That law, he explained, requires the federal government to justify why it is collecting personal data, and explain how it will be stored, and who will have access — with additional safeguards if the data could be matched to other systems in ways that affect federal benefits. If a state believes the data will be used that way, it cannot legally provide it to federal authorities. The Privacy Act also prohibits states from distributing certain data to the federal government unless strict notice and procedural requirements are met, with criminal penalties for violations.

Levitt warned that states that have already handed over their voter rolls “may be abetting a violation of federal law.” and said he believes that with the Justice Department’s information requests framed as they are now, “the federal government is absolutely violating the law.”

The DOJ has said its effort is aimed at enforcing voting rights laws and improving public faith in elections. The agency would not answer questions about the applicability of the privacy act.

Texas Secretary of State officials declined to comment on whether the agency is considering Privacy Act protections as it works to fulfill the request.

Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.

Justice Department widens its request for Pennsylvania election information

2025-08-08T18:15:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

The U.S. Justice Department is asking Pennsylvania to turn over its complete voter rolls, a request that appears to encompass voters’ personal information, including Social Security and driver’s license numbers.

The request, which Pennsylvania officials received in a letter this week, is part of a recent push to get states to turn over voter registration information, which the federal government says is aimed at enforcing election law.

But one expert told Votebeat and Spotlight PA that the federal government is likely asking for more information than it needs, and that it would be potentially illegal for states to turn over this kind of personal data.

The letter, sent to Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt on Aug. 4, was first reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer. It asks the state for a copy of its voter rolls — which it had not requested in its previous communications with Pennsylvania about election security — as well as information on the state’s answer to a survey about election administration.

“We write to you as the chief election official for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to

request information regarding the Commonwealth’s procedures for complying with the statewide voter registration list maintenance provisions of the National Voter Registration Act,” the letter said.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in California and former civil rights official in the Justice Department, said he thinks the request oversteps the federal government’s authority.

The letter cites the National Voter Registration Act, which provides for voter registration information to be public. But the law doesn’t say that “all fields” in the voter rolls can be made public, as the letter requests.

Pennsylvania’s voter rolls are available online and can be downloaded for $20, although that version does not contain personal information such as driver’s license and Social Security numbers. Levitt noted that courts have repeatedly ruled that the law doesn’t require the release of private information.

Levitt said the Justice Department doesn’t need specific voters’ information, as the letter requests, to ensure that states are complying with the NVRA.

“Knowing whether or not Justin Levitt is on the rolls and Justin Levitt’s Social Security number tells you nothing about whether a state has a general program of list maintenance,” he said.

The Justice Department recently sued Orange County, California, in part for redacting driver’s license and Social Security numbers in responding to a department request for voter registration information. Releasing those parts of the voter rolls has also been met with legal resistance in the past in Pennsylvania, based on privacy concerns.

Levitt said another issue with the letter is that the department has not disclosed publicly or to Congress why it is seeking this data, which it is required to do under the Privacy Act of 1974.

In a statement to Votebeat and Spotlight PA, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights, said clean voter rolls and election safeguards are “requisites for free, fair, and transparent elections.”

“The DOJ Civil Rights Division has a statutory mandate to enforce our federal voting rights laws, and ensuring the voting public’s confidence in the integrity of our elections is a top priority of this administration,” the statement said.

The letter from federal officials also seeks information about some answers from Pennsylvania to the Election Administration and Voting Survey. The U.S. Election Assistance Commission conducts that survey of election officials every two years to collect data on various aspects of election administration, including list maintenance.

Previously reported communications between the Justice Department and Pennsylvania did not mention EAVS data, but the Aug. 4 letter asks Schmidt to explain the state’s survey responses, including why it reported fewer-than-average duplicate registrations and why so few voter registration applications came from military recruitment offices.

Additionally the letter asks for the voting history of any noncitizen, person with felony conviction, or individual deemed incompetent who was removed from the rolls since the 2022 midterm election.

The letter asked the Department of State to respond within 14 days. As of Thursday evening, a spokesperson for the department said it had not yet responded.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

As more states adopt commercial electronic pollbooks, Wisconsin officials remain wary

2025-07-28T09:00:00+00:00

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More jurisdictions around the country are using commercial electronic pollbooks to check in voters, but many Wisconsin officials say they’re reluctant to give data to outside companies — and especially worried about using products that connect to the internet.

Currently, the only e-pollbook option Wisconsin allows is Badger Book, which about 400 municipalities use. The product was designed by the Wisconsin Elections Commission and doesn’t connect to the internet. But it’s expensive and has limited features, clerks say, and officials in the largest jurisdictions, such as Madison, worry they wouldn’t get enough tech support if they used Badger Book.

The commission on July 17 unanimously voted to create a working group of municipal and county clerks to explore commercial options, but many officials are openly skeptical.

WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe, who isn’t a voting member of the commission, said she’s eager to hear what the clerks need, but “particularly concerned about the safety of the data in the statewide voter registration database.”

“Up until this point, we’ve never even had conversations about sharing that with an outside vendor,” she said.

That sets Wisconsin apart from most states.

The number of states and U.S. territories using e-pollbooks nearly doubled between 2008 and 2024. Nearly 40% of jurisdictions across the nation now use them, and most use commercial products made by outside vendors.

With adoption spreading rapidly, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission recently developed standards for e-pollbooks, and many states have their own. The federal guidelines require meeting multiple security standards, ranging from physical security to having multi-factor authentication. Only one product so far, made by KNOWiNK, has been certified by the U.S. EAC.

Wisconsin election administrators built Badger Book themselves to save money and control the design, said Kevin Kennedy, who was Wisconsin’s election chief for more than 30 years. Kennedy said that cybersecurity is emphasized more now than when Badger Book was first designed, because there is more known about security vulnerabilities and how to combat them.

Does internet connection make e-pollbooks riskier?

Some commercial e-pollbooks have a constant internet connection, but they can have restricted access. Others are designed to operate offline on Election Day.

Pollbooks connected to the internet can allow for features such as real-time information on whether a particular person has already voted, live turnout data, or a record of how many ballots a polling site has left. Those functions can prevent somebody double-voting or keep a precinct from running out of ballots.

Several Wisconsin election officials said such features may come at a cost to security.

Ann Jacobs, the Democrat who chairs the state election commission, said she doesn’t believe an e-pollbook should connect to the internet on Election Day “unless something massive changes in security.”

“I think we’re setting ourselves up for every possible nonsense conspiracy theory,” she said.

Some election officials try to defuse conspiracy theories by reassuring voters that their voting machines don’t connect to the internet. But those statements also lead some voters to believe that any type of internet connectivity at a polling place is a bad thing, said Derek Tisler, counsel in the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice’s election and government program.

“They may not understand the distinction between a system used to check in voters having an internet connection and a system that is used to count ballots having an internet connection,” he said.

The worst-case scenarios for e-pollbooks getting hacked would be somebody stealing voters’ personal information, deactivating voter records, or making it look like a person had already voted, said Megan Maier, the deputy director of research and partnerships at Verified Voting. Meier and other experts said there is no known case of that happening.

That risk would be mitigated, Maier said, if polling sites all had paper pollbooks printed out in addition to e-pollbooks.

In Wisconsin, the election commission trains clerks using Badger Book to have a paper backup, and requires them to sign an agreement saying they “should” have paper backups.

There have been cases when hackers have accessed or breached voter registration data, at least in one case because of weak vendor security on other kinds of systems, but they haven’t involved e-pollbooks.

In one 2016 case in North Carolina, election officials had to contend with problems when an e-pollbook system inaccurately showed that voters had cast ballots when they had not, along with other malfunctions. The state required the county to use paper pollbooks to check in voters, and voting resumed.

There’s no definitive answer on whether in-house or commercial e-pollbooks are better or more secure, said Tisler, from the Brennan Center. Existing commercial products offer benefits such as more maintenance support and established security practices, Tisler said.

One area of concern, said Madison Interim Clerk Mike Haas, is that the federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has reduced its offerings to local election officials.

Earlier this year, the agency suspended some security assessments of local election systems. CISA didn’t immediately answer a question about whether those services had resumed.

Losing CISA’s security assessments is “significant,” said Trevor Timmons, from The Elections Group. Although some states and the federal government have e-pollbook security standards, he said, having an on-the-ground assessment is the best way to evaluate a jurisdiction’s potential security vulnerabilities, and most municipalities can’t afford to have a private company do it.

Nonetheless, Haas said, Wisconsin has to keep exploring options.

“If other states are able to do it in a secure way … I think Wisconsin ought to be able to have nice things too.” said Haas, the former administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Clerks’ concern: Are voters ready for internet-connected e-pollbooks?

But even clerks who are frustrated with Badger Book have reservations about an option that’s internet-connected.

Elena Hilby is the clerk of Sun Prairie, Wisconsin’s first municipality to adopt Badger Book. She has been critical in the past of the state’s e-pollbook and interested in commercial alternatives, but she told Votebeat that she’s “not 100% sure” that Wisconsin voters are ready for an internet-connected product.

Julie Huotari, the town clerk of Woodruff, said Badger Book made a lot of things easier but the small screens and an abundance of cords have made it hard for older poll workers to use.

She said she would be open to any products that the Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association and election commission recommends, but said she’s not in favor of using an internet-connected e-pollbook. “I don’t care how strong your security is, anything can be hacked,” Huotari said. “I just don’t want to go down that road, personally.”

Fredonia Village Clerk Michelle Johnson used to be deputy clerk in Boxford, Massachusetts, which used a commercial vendor’s e-pollbook for early voting, though not on Election Day.

That pollbook connected to the internet only at the end of the night, she said, when poll workers would upload voter turnout data. It made her more comfortable not to be connected to the internet during voting, she said, but she was OK with using the internet to upload the turnout data, because there was “a paper trail for every single action that we take on Election Day that backs up the electronic poll list.”

Eileen Newcomer, deputy director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, said the issue of using internet-connected commercial e-pollbooks would fly under the radar for many voters. But she said she worries about taking that step when the state is still trying to get all clerks to switch from Gmail and other email services to government accounts.

“I just don’t think we’re at a culture within clerks at this time to really take cybersecurity as seriously as they need to,” she said. “I think that our elections are secure, but I think opening it up to more risk at this time is not the move to make. You got to shore up what we already have.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Michigan becomes latest target of Justice Department inquiry on voter roll maintenance

2025-07-24T00:06:14+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

The U.S. Justice Department is asking Michigan for a copy of its voter rolls and information about how the state maintains them, as well as a series of questions about its high levels of voter registration.

In its letter to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, dated July 21 and obtained by Votebeat, the Justice Department also said it has received a complaint about the state’s compliance with a provision in federal law requiring all voters to be assigned unique identifiers.

It is the latest in a series of letters the Justice Department has sent to states about their management of voter rolls, following directives in President Donald Trump’s March executive order on elections.

The DOJ included a series of questions based on Michigan’s responses to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s Election Administration and Voting Survey, a compendium of data about election administration. The survey was released June 30.

Angela Benander, spokesperson for Michigan’s Department of State, said the department was reviewing the letter. In a text message to Votebeat, Benander said state officials “don’t accept the premise that we are somehow in violation” of the Help America Vote Act, the statute the Justice Department said was the subject of the complaint.

“These issues have been in federal court and two judges have ruled in our favor,” Benander said, referring to past lawsuits over the state’s voter list maintenance.

Republicans at all levels of government have long questioned the high rate of registration in Michigan, which has made registration easier in recent years by allowing same-day registration and automatically registering any eligible person who gets a driver’s license, for example.

Before the 2024 election, a misleading claim circulated saying that Michigan had more registered voters than residents 18 and older. That claim didn’t account for inactive voters who have likely died, moved, or otherwise become ineligible, but whose names can’t legally be removed from the rolls until a certain amount of time has passed.

As for some of the other questions in the letter, Charles Stewart, a political science professor and director of MIT’s Election Lab, said that they don’t necessarily indicate the state has done anything wrong. Duplicate registrations, for example, could be easily attributed to the way a state handles data or any of a number of other “pretty anodyne explanations,” Stewart said.

He said it’s possible that Michigan needs to improve its list maintenance practices but said the Justice Department letter “treats the EAVS data as gospel without really understanding well what the data-generating process is.”

“There is not necessarily an error so much as there’s 55 different ways of generating these numbers,” he said of EAVS. “There’s not a standard ... which all election departments are required to follow.”

The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

As Texas dives into federal SAVE database to verify voter citizenship, some experts are worried

2025-07-22T19:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.

Texas election officials are praising a revamped federal immigration database that they’ve begun using to validate the citizenship of registered voters.

Texas is one of the earliest states to start using the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ overhauled SAVE database to check voters’ eligibility. That comes after the Trump administration, in its campaign to eliminate the risk of noncitizen voting, made the database free for states to use and easier to search.

But some experts and watchdogs warn that the changes haven’t necessarily made the system more reliable. They say the administration hasn’t publicly released enough information about it, which makes it difficult to assess how complete and accurate the search results are, and whether there are enough safeguards to protect people’s privacy and voting rights.

Texas officials have repeatedly suggested in recent years that the state has a problem with noncitizens registering to vote, citing discoveries of allegedly large numbers of noncitizens on voter rolls. But the statements and numbers haven’t always held up under scrutiny, and the state has had to revamp its verification process after many of people identified as potential noncitizens turned out to be naturalized citizens who were flagged due to outdated data.

The Trump administration has promoted SAVE as a source of real-time information on immigration status. With the changes it made to the system, state election officials can now upload voter registration records in bulk for verification, instead of one by one, or search records individually by Social Security number — and they don’t have to pay for it.

As of May 23, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office used the SAVE database to attempt to check at least 1,657 records, according to public records obtained by the nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog group American Oversight and shared with Votebeat and The Texas Tribune. Nearly 300 of those searches returned errors, the records show, which the Secretary of State’s Office said occurred during testing and may have been caused by duplicate records or information in the wrong format.

In June, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office announced that after further checking results produced by SAVE, it had referred 33 potential noncitizens for investigation by the Texas Attorney General’s Office — people it said had voted in the November 2024 general election. More than 11 million Texans cast ballots in that election.

“The SAVE is the most current and accurate database available to states to verify citizenship, and we appreciate the Trump Administration for giving us access to it free of charge,” said Alicia Pierce, a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. “It is one of many data sets we use to ensure accurate voter rolls.”

In a June call with election officials from across the state, according to audio obtained and reviewed by Votebeat, state Elections Director Christina Adkins said the tool has “really accurate data” and helped her office validate the citizenship status of “a ton” of naturalized citizens, confirming they are eligible to be on the rolls and cast ballots.

Adkins didn’t say on the call where the people identified as potential noncitizens were registered. But she said her office took careful steps and reached out to counties before referring the cases to the attorney general to “make sure there weren’t any mistakes.”

American Oversight obtained a copy of the agreement between the Secretary of State’s Office and federal authorities on the use of SAVE. Under the agreement, Texas must provide registrants who “are not verified” as U.S. citizens by SAVE with the opportunity to use the state’s existing process to appeal and correct the records prior to a final decision, “if necessary.”

Concerns about using SAVE for verifying voter eligibility

The SAVE database has been available since the 1980s, primarily for state and local government agencies to check people’s immigration status and determine whether they’re eligible for licenses and other benefits. But until recently, it was impractical as a way to verify voters’ eligibility. Election officials could check only one record at a time, and had to pay for each search.

Election officials have said a tool like SAVE could be useful for determining voter eligibility — assuming it’s accurate. But data privacy and legal experts are concerned about adapting SAVE for the purpose of maintaining voter rolls. They have questioned the accuracy and reliability of the data, given how quickly the system changes were made this year, as well as how the federal government is using data uploaded by states.

John Davisson, director of litigation with the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy watchdog group, said SAVE shouldn’t be used for purposes it wasn’t originally designed for, especially without robust scrutiny and input from both Congress and the public.

“If there’s a sort of mission creep, if it starts to expand, that’s upending the expectations of the people who approved and created the system in the first place,” Davisson said. “It’s upending the expectations of the public and the people who are submitting to verification against this database. And that’s a privacy violation.”

Justin Levitt, a constitutional law expert who worked in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, said the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the U.S. CIS, hasn’t yet issued the public notice required under the Privacy Act, a federal law that regulates the collection, use, and dissemination of information about individuals by federal agencies. DHS, he said, should be able to tell the public how it is using the data that’s being uploaded by the states.

“The whole point of the Privacy Act is I shouldn’t have to guess at that answer, that they should tell us first: What are you planning on? How do you plan on using this data?” he said in an interview with Votebeat.

In a joint statement last week, Democratic Sens. Alex Padilla of California, Gary Peters of Michigan, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon said the SAVE overhaul raises privacy questions that require more documentation from DHS.

They said they were concerned that data quality issues may cause “state and local officials who rely on the program to receive false positives or incomplete results.”

American Oversight, the watchdog group that obtained the documents shared with Votebeat and the Tribune, said that even with the protocol for notifying registrants who are flagged, it was still concerned about whether voters were adequately protected from any flawed data matches. It pointed to the language in the agreement between the Secretary of State’s Office and DHS that called for outreach to voters “if necessary.”

“This lack of transparency — combined with vague, watered-down safeguards — creates real risk for wrongful voter purges and disenfranchisement,” said Chioma Chukwu, the group’s executive director. “That’s why public scrutiny is so essential.”

Maintaining voter rolls is up to county registrars

The agreement between DHS and the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, does not address whether the federal government is retaining data uploaded by state officials. U.S. CIS did not respond to a specific question about that, but in an emailed statement, the agency called SAVE “a critical tool for state and local governments to access information to safeguard the integrity of elections across the country.”

The agency added that “SAVE does not kick eligible voters off the voter rolls.”

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office can’t add voters to the rolls or remove them. That is up to county voter registrars, who are required by state law to conduct voter list maintenance daily. Voter registrars verify the eligibility of voters through multiple records, from sources including the Bureau of Vital Statistics, district courts, and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

According to the state election code, if voter registrars believe a person is not eligible, the registrar must notify the person in writing that their registration status is being reviewed. The notice has to include a request for information relevant to determining the voter’s eligibility for registration, such as proof of citizenship, age, or address verification. The voter then has 30 days to respond before their registration is canceled.

Adkins said the state is talking to U.S. CIS about whether the SAVE database can be used more broadly. For instance, she said, the data could be used to validate the registration and eligibility of thousands of other voters on the rolls beyond immigrants, and address other challenges to registration received by election officials.

Last year, county election departments across the state were flooded with formal challenges from activists questioning whether the registrations of tens of thousands of voters were valid. The challenges created backlogs and burdened election officials as they prepared for a presidential election.

“I personally think that it would be fantastic if we can utilize that in a way to give validations to voters,” she said, “so that there is no cloud of suspicion over their registration, so that it can’t be challenged at a later date.”

Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org

Hackers who breached Arizona election website aimed at other targets, too

2025-07-22T18:17:08+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

Arizona officials say they have “moderate confidence” that the Iranian government or its affiliates are responsible for a cyberattack that breached the state’s candidate web portal last month, and say the same actors attempted to breach servers for other agencies in Arizona and elsewhere.

The hacker gained access to a server at the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office on June 23 and began changing candidate profile photos that appear on the state’s election results website, according to office officials.

The hacker changed all of the photos to the same image — a red and black image of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 revolution that established Iran as an Islamic republic.

State cybersecurity officials cannot say for certain who is responsible, said Ryan Murray, the top cybersecurity official with the Arizona Department of Homeland Security, which is assisting the Secretary of State’s Office with its investigation. But Murray said they believe it’s likely Iran, because of the image the hacker uploaded, the sophistication and persistence of the attacks, and the timing — two days after the June 21 U.S. bombing of Iran.

The day after the bombing, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a warning that cyberattacks by “pro-Iranian hacktivists are likely, and cyber actors affiliated with the Iranian government may conduct attacks against U.S. networks.”

Hackers with the same IP addresses attempted attacks on other Arizona agencies, and in other states, according to state cybersecurity officials. They declined to share which agencies or states were targeted, but said that they learned of those attempts by talking to election cybersecurity staff in other states through the National Association of Secretaries of State.

Murray confirmed that Arizona’s Homeland Security Department saw other activity from the same IP addresses on other state and local government servers. The department is making sure state agencies and local governments “can better protect themselves,” he said.

Attempted attacks persisted during shutdown

The Secretary of State’s Office shut down the web portal almost immediately after the attack began, it said, and blocked the hacker. But the hacker was “sophisticated,” Murray said, and continued to attempt to breach the server in other ways throughout the week the portal was shut down. Murray said he believes the attempts have now stopped.

The candidate portal is separate from the systems the state uses for voter registration, reporting election results, and campaign petitions. The site includes election results, but they feed from a different server and weren’t on the one that was attacked. No voter data was accessed, officials said.

The candidate portal hosts mainly public information, but officials are still investigating whether any private, personally identifying information was improperly accessed, office spokesperson Aaron Thacker said. The server that was breached also hosts the website where people submit applications to become a notary public, and Thacker said the investigation is examining whether the hacker accessed that system at all.

The office is now requesting $10 million in immediate funding from the governor and lawmakers to modernize its systems in hopes of preventing future attacks, Thacker said.

Fontes decides not to alert federal cybersecurity agency

Upon noticing the breach, the Secretary of State’s Office began working with the Arizona Department of Homeland Security to investigate, and also notified the National Guard’s cybersecurity team and a third-party cybersecurity vendor that was already working with the office, Thacker said.

But Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said he decided not to immediately report the incident to the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a federal agency that has long partnered with election officials around the country. Some Republicans faulted Fontes for that decision.

While the agency was a reliable partner until this year, Fontes said in a statement, the Trump administration has “politicized and weakened” CISA. His comments come after the administration paused CISA’s election security activities earlier this year, saying many did not fit with their priorities, and then slashed the agency’s election security funding.

Fontes said that his office has “lost confidence in their capacity to collaborate in good faith.”

The state’s Homeland Security Department, though, has given information about the attack to the FBI’s Phoenix field office, as well as CISA. Murray said his department shared some information about the attack, such as the IP address, without mentioning which government office it affected, to see whether CISA had any relevant information.

On Friday, Fontes met in Washington with federal cybersecurity officials, according to Thacker. Thacker declined to disclose which agency Fontes met with, or whether the breach was the subject of the meeting.

Fontes’ office also briefed the governor and a bipartisan group of state lawmakers last week.

How the hacker breached the server

On June 23, cybersecurity tools meant to warn officials of suspicious activity sent an alert about the server that hosts the candidate portal.

The hacker created a profile using the Secretary of State’s Office candidate web portal, which allows any member of the public to create a profile where they can upload personal information about their candidacy, their photo, and candidate filings.

The hacker used the photo upload option to instead upload code that compromised the server, according to office officials. The officials noticed this activity quickly, but didn’t notice the candidate profiles changing on the results pages until the next day, when a member of the public alerted a staff member.

The office saw that the hacker was changing the photos, one by one, on pages for election results from 2016 to 2024. The special primary election for the 7th Congressional District was on July 15, but that results page was not yet live on the website, and those candidate profiles were not changed, office officials said.

The office’s cybersecurity officials were able to block the hacker, but the hacker regained entry using other IP addresses. Thacker said that the old portal, which lacks modern security features, is partly to blame.

Since taking office in 2023, Fontes has asked for millions of dollars in state funding to create new, more secure electronic systems. “That funding has not materialized,” Thacker said.

The office is now working with the state’s legislative budget committee to try to find $10 million in the recently approved state budget, along with $3.5 million in additional ongoing funding.

Fontes’ office isn’t the only government agency in Arizona with antiquated systems, Murray said.

“Legacy technology and technological debt exists everywhere,” he said. “It’s something we have done our best to put controls around.”

Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.

Hacker changed candidate photos on Arizona election results website

2025-07-17T16:39:30+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Arizona’s free newsletter here.

A hacker gained access to the web portal Arizona candidates use to upload information about themselves and changed candidate profile photos that were live on the election results website, just three weeks before the special congressional primary election, Votebeat has learned.

The Secretary of State’s Office realized the system had been breached, shut down the candidate portal the week of June 23, and kept it offline for a week, according to JP Martin, an office spokesperson. Martin said officials flagged the problem upon noticing unusual activity. He said he did not know what kinds of photographs had been improperly posted, or which candidate photos were changed.

The hacker was able to gain access to candidates’ individual profiles, where the information they upload, including candidate filings, is stored. While much of that is public information, the office is still investigating whether any private, personally identifying information was improperly accessed, Martin said.

The candidate portal is separate from the state’s voter registration and petition signature gathering systems. No voter data was accessed, Martin said.

When the office’s cybersecurity team realized that a malicious actor had gained access, Martin said, it contacted the Arizona Department of Homeland Security, the National Guard, and a private cybersecurity firm to help. All three are helping with the investigation, he said.

While the portal was down, candidates had to work with the office to submit their documents and information through workarounds. The portal now directs candidates to update their passwords, “to support ongoing cybersecurity preparedness.”

The election results page on the Secretary of State Office's website, showing the correct photos for candidates for the 7th Congressional District primary eleciton.

The office put out a news release about the incident on July 1, two weeks before the July 15 primary for the 7th Congressional District, explaining that the office had “detected and successfully responded to a malicious adversary” that targeted the website. It did not provide additional details publicly, but also briefed a bipartisan group of state lawmakers about the breach.

On Tuesday, Tyler Bowyer, COO of political advocacy group Turning Point Action, criticized Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for not providing the public with more information about what occurred. “Don’t let Fontes bury this and pretend like ‘there is nothing to see here,’” he wrote in a social media post.

Martin said that criticism is false, pointing out that the office met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers to discuss the incident and isn’t trying to hide it.

In recent comments to the Arizona Technology Council, Martin said, Fontes emphasized how large a threat cybercrime is, and how businesses, institutions, and democracy are all at risk. It’s “counterproductive” to demonize organizations that are transparent about attacks when they occur, Martin said.

Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.

U.S. Justice Department peppers state election officials with data requests to enforce Trump directives

2025-07-17T16:15:15+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter to get the latest.

The U.S. Department of Justice has unnerved some state election officials by issuing sweeping requests for information that it says is pertinent to enforcing federal election laws and investigating voting crimes, which President Donald Trump has identified as priorities.

In letters sent to at least a dozen states over the past two months, according to documents obtained by Votebeat and reported elsewhere, the department asked for varied sets of data and records, including voter rolls, information on potential election and voting crimes, data from past elections, and details about procedures for maintaining voter lists and checking voters’ eligibility.

State officials say privately that they have been struck by the scope of the requests and uncertainty around what the administration plans to do with the information, and have been talking to one another about them. Many of these officials have faced years of near-constant scrutiny as Trump and his allies have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims of election malfeasance, and the president has tried to use his influence and official authority to rewrite the history of his 2020 election loss.

While the requests so far are mostly for data or procedures that are public information or accessible by law to the Justice Department, election law experts said, some of them were more questionable.

Bryan Sells, a voting rights lawyer who worked at the Justice Department during the Obama administration, said federal law has long given the department the right to access some state data related to voter registrations, and it’s not uncommon or improper for it to use that power.

“But I think the question I had after reading these emails is whether what they’re really looking for goes beyond what Congress allowed for,” he said.

For example, the Justice Department sent Michigan and Arizona officials emails asking for information on “individuals who have registered to vote or have voted in your state despite being ineligible to vote.” That request arguably falls within the department’s purview, Sells said. But a request for information on people “who may otherwise have engaged in unlawful conduct relevant to the election process” is broad and might not be.

Kory Langhofer, a Republican lawyer who has been counsel for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign in Arizona, said that it’s fair to be cautious, or even skeptical of broad data requests from the federal government.

But Langhofer said, “I don’t think it’s reasonable to say the sky is falling, because the information requested here is already in the hands of both the state and federal governments,” if not necessarily the Justice Department specifically.

President’s executive order stressed election law enforcement

The information requests are another example of the Justice Department’s shift in enforcement priorities under the Trump administration toward finding and prosecuting election crimes, something the president explicitly called on the attorney general to do in a March executive order on elections.

Federal courts have blocked key provisions of the order from going into effect, but the Justice Department and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission have begun taking steps to implement some other provisions that are still in force.

That appears to be the goal of a recent round of Justice Department correspondence to key swing states including Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Michigan. In emails obtained by Votebeat, the department asks for a call with a goal of setting up an agreement to share information on election crimes, such as individuals providing false information on registration forms or registering to vote when they are ineligible.

“With your cooperation, we plan to use this information to enforce Federal election laws and protect the integrity of Federal elections,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in at least two such emails.

Trump’s executive order instructs the Justice Department to attempt to establish such information-sharing agreements with states, and orders it to “prioritize enforcement of Federal election integrity laws” in any state that declines to do so, as well as consider withholding federal grants to such states.

The Justice Department declined to comment for this story.

Michigan’s Department of State said it is reviewing the request. Officials in Pennsylvania said that they met with Justice Department officials and that “the discussion was consistent with our longstanding cooperation with our federal partners to protect the integrity of elections.”

JP Martin, a spokesperson for the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office, said the office is “dealing with DOJ in a good faith manner while ensuring we are following the letter of federal and state laws.”

States receive requests for voter rolls

Meanwhile, several states are receiving Justice Department requests for their voter rolls, and information about voter roll cleaning. They include Wisconsin, where the department asked in June for a copy of its voter rolls, along with responses to several questions about voter registration activities, in response to complaints the department said it had received about possible violations of federal voting law. Eight other states received similar requests, the Washington Post reported.

Wisconsin election officials directed the department to an online portal where the public version of the voter rolls could be purchased for $12,500.

Trump’s executive order also directs the Homeland Security Department to review “publicly available” versions of the voter lists “alongside Federal immigration databases … for consistency with Federal requirements.”

The DOJ requests are presumably an attempt to “gather all the relevant data in one place, conduct an authoritative study, and put these issues to rest,” Langhofer said, referring to questions Republicans have repeatedly raised about whether ineligible voters are casting ballots.

“It is important to know that our voters are citizens and residents, and are not voting in more than one jurisdiction,” he said in a text message. “If there is a problem in one of those areas, we should fix it — and if there is *not* a problem there, people should know that our system works well.”

But election officials appear to be concerned, said David Becker, an election lawyer who previously worked in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and now leads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research.

The recent communications from the department are “odd at the least, and it is an intentional rebalancing of the federal-state dynamic at worst,” Becker said.

Earlier this week, in response to calls from election officials about the Justice Department’s requests, Becker hosted a conference call that was attended by more than 350 state and local election officials from 33 states, which he said is a reflection of the anxiety about possible federal overreach.

Becker noted that the letters followed a series of aggressive administration actions on elections since Trump returned to office, including a lawsuit against Orange County, California, over access to voter data, and a presidential directive demanding an investigation into Chris Krebs, the nation’s former top cybersecurity official. Krebs angered Trump in 2020 by contradicting his assertion that his election loss to Joe Biden was due to fraud.

“All of these seem designed not to create a viable election policy, but to lay the groundwork to claim the 2026 and 2028 elections are stolen, just as the president did with the 2020 and 2022 elections,” Becker said. “And the troubling part is, it seems now the White House is prepared to use the full weight of the government to spread those claims.”

Votebeat reporters Hayley Harding and Alexander Shur contributed to this report.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org. Jen Fifield is a reporter for Votebeat based in Arizona. Contact Jen at jfifield@votebeat.org.

Investigation into missing Madison ballots spotlights lax security at county-owned building

2025-07-16T17:04:14+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

One of the bags of uncounted ballots from Madison’s 2024 presidential election was inadvertently stored in a county-owned building that was left unsecured at times and that was used at one point by an “unauthorized” person for shelter, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s latest report into the ballot snafu.

The bag, which contained 68 ballots, was discovered after the election in a building that formerly housed the Ale Asylum brewery. Madison records show that as recently as February 2025, a door to the facility wasn’t locking properly, and email records show that county officials discussed conducting wellness and security checks at the building at that time. It’s unclear when exactly the homeless person was inside the building.

Dane County bought the 45,000-square-foot building in 2023 to convert it into an election center, but renovations have not begun. The center isn’t scheduled to open until 2027, Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell said.

In the meantime, the city asked to use the facility for storing its election materials, because it didn’t have enough space elsewhere, Madison Interim Clerk Mike Haas said. The bag of live ballots was never supposed to be there; only nonsensitive items, like security carts, plastic voting booths, and signage, were intended to be stored at the building, Deputy Clerk Jim Verbick said.

In an interview with Votebeat, McDonell recalled city officials asking whether the county was using the Ale Asylum building. The county said no — it still needed design work and a construction bid. “They were desperate for some place to put everything,” McDonell told Votebeat. “And so we said they could use it.”

Dane County isn’t charging the city to use the facility. The city is now looking for another storage site ahead of upcoming construction, Haas said.

No evidence of ballot tampering at the site

A city contractor told the commission that there were no external alarms at the building and that city officials once called police to remove someone sleeping in the “old offices kind of hidden away” at the facility.

The only police call on the property since the beginning of 2024 came in July of that year, when Madison police received a report of a possible stolen camper parked outside. Two people were arrested for possession of stolen property and the camper was towed, police spokesperson Stephanie Fryer said.

There’s no evidence that the lax security at the building contributed to the Madison ballots going missing, or that the ballots were tampered with at the facility. The bag of uncounted ballots found there had its security seals intact when election officials discovered it a week after Election Day. None of the ballot storage carts kept there had been improperly unlocked after the election, a contractor for the Madison Clerk’s Office who testified to the commission said.

Asked for further detail about the security concerns, Wisconsin Elections Commission chair Ann Jacobs, who co-led the investigation, said she didn’t remember the details of every deposition.

New election center will address security, storage concerns

The county bought the facility for just under $5 million after a task force found its previous election storage space inadequate for such a critical function. A 2023 report highlighted the old facility’s vulnerability to water damage — Madison had to replace most of its tabulators after a 2016 flood — and the increased threats to election workers following the 2020 election.

Wold Architects and Engineers is working with the county on the project, which is expected to go out for construction bids soon. The final design includes security upgrades like keycards for access and will have fenced-in parking lots, external and internal cameras, and alarms, McDonell said.

Once completed, the facility will house election equipment for the county’s municipalities in a warehouse space, including a portion just for Madison equipment, he said. The building will also house offices for Dane County Clerk’s Office staff and include space to train poll workers, conduct recounts, and monitor emergency situations, he said.

McDonell said the center is not modeled exactly on any existing facility, but it borrows design features from big metro-area election centers in Maricopa County, Arizona; Hillsborough County, Florida; and Cook County, Illinois. There’s no comparable center currently operating in Wisconsin.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Texas is investigating votes by potential noncitizens in 2020 and 2022 elections

2025-07-15T19:02:37+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Tuesday that he is investigating “more than 100 potential noncitizens” suspected of casting more than 200 ballots during the 2020 and 2022 election cycles.

Paxton’s news release said most of the cases involve Harris County voters. His office is also investigating possible instances in Guadalupe, Cameron, and Eastland counties, using information obtained from the Texas Secretary of State, the news release said.

In Texas, about 11 million voters cast ballots in Texas in the November 2020 presidential election, and more than 8 million in the November 2022 general election. The more than 200 ballots Paxton cited for the two full election cycles would amount to around one-thousandth of 1% of the ballots cast in just the two general elections combined.

Noncitizen voting is illegal, and documented cases of it are rare, but Republicans have argued that even a single instance is too many. They’ve called for eliminating the threat of noncitizen voting through state and federal legislation requiring documentary proof of citizenship from voters. Some states, including Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Wyoming, have recently passed such laws. But a bill in Texas failed to pass during the regular legislative session that ended in June.

In November, Texas voters will be asked to approve a constitutional amendment affirming that only U.S. citizens are permitted to vote, which is already codified in state and federal law.

To encourage states to crack down on the risk of noncitizen voting, President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March directing the Department of Homeland Security to provide all states free access to SAVE, a federal database managed by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service, where election officials can check the citizenship status of registered voters.

Last month, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office announced it had referred 33 potential noncitizens who voted in the November 2024 election to the attorney general’s office. Paxton said his office is also investigating those cases.

“If you’re a noncitizen who illegally cast a ballot, you will face the full force of the law,” Paxton said in Tuesday’s news release.

Natalia Contreras is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org.

What the election case in Rockland County, N.Y., tells us about the tide of voter mistrust

2025-07-14T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Donald Trump is leaving little doubt about who’s president right now, but in one corner of the country, a lawsuit is helping to fan skepticism about the results of the 2024 general election.

The case against Rockland County, New York, claims that there were irregularities in the county’s vote tallies, judging in part by what the plaintiffs characterize as statistical anomalies — notably the mismatch in support between Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and the person at the top of the party’s ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris. Gillibrand won the suburban county by about 8,000 votes, while Harris lost to Trump by more than 17,000.

The plaintiffs say it’s a suspicious pattern of ticket-splitting that suggests vote-rigging or errors, an echo of the spurious claims made by Trump allies when he lost several swing states in 2020. They want the court to invalidate the Senate and presidential election results and order the county to redo the election.

A state court dismissed most of the plaintiffs’ requests in March, but Justice Rachel Tanguay is allowing discovery in the case to proceed after the county Board of Elections acknowledged it might amend its response. (The original plaintiffs included a third-party senatorial candidate, two voters, and an activist group that has long opposed some voting machines, though only the activist group remains.) So the case continues for now.

Unlike Trump in 2020, Harris herself hasn’t amplified the lawsuit’s claims about 2024. And many experts say there’s no reason to question the validity of the election results, in Rockland County or elsewhere.

In a recent blog post, Charles Stewart III, an MIT professor and well-known election expert, carefully broke down the precinct-level data for Rockland County and said he found no signs of errors or manipulation.

Examined closely, Stewart wrote, the anomalies are mostly centered on a small number of polling locations in the town of Ramapo. There, he wrote, many members of Orthodox Jewish communities supported Gillibrand, but declined to support Harris, which explains the gap.

“The Rockland County election results in this case are a nothingburger,” he wrote unequivocally.

Nonetheless, the lawsuit’s claims have begun circulating online, and some commenters are pointing to them to suggest that something may be wrong with the election’s results more broadly.

We’ve written about this type of election denialism as a problem on the right, and it remains true that Republican leaders, from the president all the way down to municipal officials and candidates, have pushed election conspiracy narratives far more than Democratic leaders. Across the country after the 2020 election, Republicans went to extraordinary — in some cases, extralegal — lengths to delegitimize Joe Biden’s victory, and some still haven’t quit.

But the response to the Rockland County case shows that there’s an appetite for it on the left as well. A recent YouGov poll found that 41% of voters who reported casting a ballot for Harris in 2024 did not believe that Trump “legitimately won the election.” And claims about “statistical anomalies” in the election results — a common theme of the conspiracy theories about Trump’s 2020 loss — are increasingly being used by those who want to sow doubt in the integrity of the 2024 election and, in some cases, Trump’s victory specifically.

Which brings us to why this matters beyond the borders of Rockland County — and to leaders of both parties.

A new report from the States United Democracy Center, shared exclusively with Votebeat, shows that people are more likely to vote when they are confident that their ballots will be counted as intended. That’s long been the theory, but thanks to this study, it’s now backed by validated voter file data. States United matched survey responses about voter confidence with actual turnout records and found a clear, consistent pattern that crossed partisan lines: Confidence drives participation. Doubt keeps people home.

According to the research, if all voters had felt confident their vote would count as intended in 2024, turnout might have increased by as many as 5.7 million people.

The study is “concrete evidence of the impact on voter participation,” said Kelly Rader, States United’s research director. It’s the “so what.”

And that applies to Democrats as well. Even now, they haven’t been nearly as active in circulating election misinformation as Republicans have been since 2020, but when they do, they can expect the same effect to kick in: Supporters get disillusioned and stay home.

“Americans overwhelmingly believe it’s more important that every legal vote is counted than that their preferred candidate wins,” the States United survey found. That’s a good thing. But it only works if everyone stops playing fast and loose with election integrity claims.

So here’s the takeaway: If parties want to win elections, they have to stop telling voters the system is rigged every time they lose. Because when you chip away at people’s trust in democracy, you’re chipping away at your own turnout, too.

Clarification, July 14, 2025: This story has been updated to clarify that some plaintiffs have withdrawn from the case since it was first filed.

Jessica Huseman is Votebeat’s editorial director and is based in Dallas. Contact Jessica at jhuseman@votebeat.org.

U.S. Justice Department presses Pennsylvania for answers on how it manages voter rolls

2025-07-09T20:26:45+00:00

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking Pennsylvania for a wide range of information on how it manages voter registration and voter rolls, as part of what it calls “nationwide efforts” to monitor compliance with a key federal voting statute.

In a June 23 letter to Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt, the department asked for 14 categories of information on the state’s voter registration activities, including how voters are added to and removed from the voter roll, and how the state prevents unauthorized access to its system.

Votebeat and Spotlight PA obtained a copy of the letter, which was signed by Maureen Riordan, the new acting chief of the voting section in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

The letter is the latest in a series of requests the Civil Rights Division has sent to states involving their compliance with federal voting statutes. This one specifically cites the Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, a 2002 law that overhauled voter registration and election administration.

Riordan requested a response within 30 days. Amy Gulli, spokesperson for Pennsylvania’s Department of State, said that the agency intended to respond, but hadn’t done so as of Wednesday.

David Becker, an election lawyer who previously worked in the Civil Rights Division and now leads the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, noted that nearly all of the requests for information cited specific sections of HAVA to justify them, except for one asking for the process the state uses to identify and remove noncitizens from the voter rolls.

“That’s because there isn’t one, and DOJ has no jurisdiction to request that data,” he said in a text message.

Becker said the request otherwise didn’t raise any specific concerns.

Arizona, Colorado, and Wisconsin election officials have also received letters from the Justice Department, each one with a different set of requests or allegations.

A letter sent in May to Arizona’s Secretary of State Adrian Fontes alleged that the state was not properly verifying voters’ identities as required by HAVA, and threatened a lawsuit, Votebeat reported in June. Fontes, a Democrat, responded that state election officials conduct a complete residency and citizenship check and fully comply with HAVA.

A letter from early June sent to the Wisconsin Elections Commission said the state was not properly resolving administrative complaints as required under HAVA; the commission has been summarily dismissing HAVA complaints that are about the agency’s own actions, based on a 2022 Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion. Colorado received a letter from the department in May asking Colorado for “all records” related to the 2024 election in response to a complaint the department had received.

The Justice Department also recently sued North Carolina over allegations that it had failed to maintain an accurate voter list as required by HAVA, and sued Orange County, California, over an alleged failure to provide some records related to the removal of noncitizens from its voter rolls.

The letter to Pennsylvania does not mention any complaint, or assert the state has done anything wrong. “We very much appreciate your cooperation in our nationwide efforts to monitor HAVA compliance,” it concludes.

A spokesperson with the Justice Department declined to comment.

The New York Times reported on July 2 that senior officials in the Justice Department are exploring whether they can criminally charge election officials for not sufficiently safeguarding their computer systems.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Trump’s executive order: Work on new voting system guidelines is already in motion

2025-06-30T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.

Several provisions of President Donald Trump’s executive order on elections have run into obstacles in court. But others are quietly moving ahead, at least for now, with big potential implications for state and local election officials and the voting systems they rely on.

In Montgomery County, Ohio, for example, residents can choose to mark their ballots either by hand, or using a ballot-marking device that prints out a paper ballot with a summary of their choices, alongside a machine-readable code reflecting those choices. Voters can verify their selections before submitting their ballots into a tabulator, which scans the code and records the votes.

At least 85% of voters in a typical election choose the option that relies on the machine-readable codes, Jeff Rezabek, the county elections director, estimated.

So Rezabek is closely watching what happens with a provision in the executive order that calls for mostly banning the use of such codes (except where required for disability access), and what it would mean for the millions of dollars’ worth of already-certified voting equipment he can’t easily or quickly replace.

Experts consider systems with a voter-verifiable paper record to be the gold standard for election security. But some critics have argued that when these systems use a code for faster counting, voters have no way of knowing whether the code accurately reflect their choices, even though the results can be checked later.

The executive order instructs the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to work the barcode ban into a revision of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines, the certification standards that most states rely on for their voting equipment. And the multistep process of altering the standards is already beginning.

An initial step is set for July 2, when the U.S. EAC has called a meeting of its Technical Guidelines Development Committee, a group of mainly election officials and technical experts.

The EAC’s meeting notice says the technical committee, which currently has several vacancies, will consider a draft of updated guidelines at that meeting.

EAC Chairman Donald Palmer, in an emailed response to questions from Votebeat, said there have “been security concerns expressed by the Executive Branch, state legislatures, and stakeholders on both sides of the aisle” about the use of barcodes and QR codes, and the July 2 meeting is a required step in the EAC’s regular update process.

“With this review, the EAC is being responsive to election officials’ needs and the evolving security demands of our elections,” he said. “Gathering feedback from our boards and the public is a chance for the community to provide its essential input on those changes.”

Building voting systems to new standards, testing them in federally accredited laboratories, and certifying them takes a long time. The last set of revised guidelines, VVSG 2.0, were adopted in 2021, but no systems certified under those guidelines have yet hit the market, though some are going through the process now.

It isn’t clear what the EAC will do if the technical committee declines to endorse revised guidelines on the barcodes. But election officials know the general public isn’t closely following the federal rule-making process, and may not understand that equipment certified under the previous guidelines can be used securely and produce accurate results. They are worried that the executive order has already sown public doubt about the integrity of voting equipment.

“It doesn’t entirely matter what happens through the standards process because voters are not going to hear that part,” said Amy Cohen, executive director of the National Association of State Election Directors. “Voters are hearing the president said this, and so that optics challenge is going to be very difficult for elections in 2025 and beyond.”

State lawmakers, too, could also try to act on their own to carry out the president’s priorities, regardless of what happens with the executive order. That could prove expensive for local jurisdictions. Rezabek said Ohio state lawmakers recently considered legislation that would require localities to use election equipment certified to VVSG 2.0, which would require buying new machines.

“Then we’re in trouble because one, I have no funding,” he said. And even if he did, he said, “the manufacturer doesn’t have it to give to us.”

Rezabek, a former Republican state lawmaker, worked with Ohio’s election officials association to address their concerns and lobby state legislators against that. They haven’t adopted such a requirement — yet.

Election officials in other states are also worried. In Texas, state Elections Director Christina Adkins told county election officials on a call this month that her office has been “in discussions,” with the EAC, which she said “understands the impact of any decisions they make in this area.”

“I want to make it very clear, though, that we are bound to the federal certifications,” Adkins said. “Our state law requires that, so any changes to the federal certifications would generally apply to Texas systems as well.”

Some counties are already moving to replace equipment because of the executive order. In Williamson County, Texas, commissioners voted to spend more than $1 million to replace their current voting system, which relies on barcodes, with equipment that does not, according to local news reports.

Los Angeles County, the nation’s largest voting jurisdiction, uses customized voting equipment, and publicly posts a key to deciphering its QR code, to reassure the public that the codes can be checked to verify that they accurately reflect voters’ choices.

Election officials have been “assessing the impact” of having to modify or replace more than 31,000 ballot marking devices that are valued at more than $141 million, county elections chief Dean Logan wrote in court filings connected to one of the lawsuits challenging the executive order.

Money is just one consideration.

“Even if the EAC goes forward, changes these standards, and tries to apply them to existing voting systems, the time frame for making that kind of significant change to a voting system … that is usually a multiple year process to do that,” Logan said in an interview with Votebeat. “So part of what is not well-constructed in that order is understanding the timeline.”

Votebeat Texas reporter Natalia Contreras contributed.

Carrie Levine is Votebeat’s editor-in-chief and is based in Washington, D.C. Contact Carrie at clevine@votebeat.org.

Wisconsin to consider more electronic pollbook options, as in-house system faces limitations

2025-06-27T09:00:00+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

When Madison residents went to vote in a special election this month, they didn’t have to stand in line according to their last name or wait for poll workers to flip through paper lists to find their names. For the first time, election officials there used electronic pollbooks to check voters in, allowing them to search for voters’ names and collect signatures on digital pads.

They could also use the e-pollbooks to process absentee ballots, register new voters, and issue voter numbers, just as they did with paper poll books, but with less chance of error.

The pilot program in the state capital offered a glimpse of both the technology’s potential — and its current limitations. Poll workers praised the state’s in-house e-pollbook system, known as Badger Book, for its speed and accuracy. But its high costs, limited vendor options, and a lack of state funding for support staff have stalled broader adoption, especially in large cities.

Now, with the Wisconsin Elections Commission beginning to evaluate commercial e-pollbook vendors, clerks are hoping new options might offer a more sustainable path forward.

Deploying the state’s system in a city as large as Madison is “just not practical at this point,” Mike Haas, Madison’s interim clerk, said after the June 17 county supervisor election. “We looked at it more as an opportunity to get familiar with the technology.”

Funding is just one challenge. Adopting the e-pollbook in a city like Madison could cost well over $1 million. While the software is free, the hardware for running it — including a tablet-like device and a printer — costs well over $2,000 for each station, and each of the city’s 120 polling locations would each likely need several. Milwaukee, with over 180 sites, would face even higher costs. And in small, cash-strapped towns, setting aside even $10,000 for e-pollbooks can be unrealistic.

Another challenge is access to support. Badger Book is the only approved e-pollbook in the state, and it’s designed and maintained by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

While any municipality can use it, commission staffers would likely be limited in their ability to provide Election Day support for a city as big as Madison or Milwaukee, unless they got more funding from the Legislature.

Larger jurisdictions using Badger Book would have to manage some of the logistics and troubleshooting on their own, said Ann Jacobs, a Democratic appointee and current chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

“I would love it if we could have the staff sufficient to have a little Badger Book division and be able to service Badger Books statewide,” she said. “That would be terrific. That’s not our current reality.”

Sun Prairie confronts the costs of an upgrade

Sun Prairie, northeast of Madison, was the first municipality in Wisconsin to adopt the e-pollbook after the technology rolled out in 2018. Now around 400 out of the state’s 1,850 municipalities use it. It’s an excellent tool that saves hours of staff time, said Sun Prairie Clerk Elena Hilby, but the city’s hardware is aging and beginning to slow down, and as long as Badger Book is the only system available, she worries about the cost of updating it.

Currently, only one company in Wisconsin — PDS, A Converge Company, which is based in Oconomowoc — is authorized to replace the hardware used to operate the e-pollbooks.

When Hilby asked the company for a quote on a machine in January, the cost was $2,011, she said. In April, she said, it was $2,441, an increase that the company attributed to tariffs.

“We are literally fish in a barrel,” Hilby said. “They can make it cost whatever they want, and we’re stuck, because they’re the only ones we can use.”

And she doesn’t want the Badger Books the way they are. “I want WEC to give me other options,” she said.

Commercial alternatives may not be much cheaper, said Ben Adida, founder and executive director of election technology vendor VotingWorks. And either way, the investment can be worth it, Adida said, because e-pollbooks reduce staff time. That’s especially true at the end of the night when poll workers upload voter data, a task that’s “incredibly tedious” without e-pollbooks, he said.

One advantage of an in-house system is that it can be tailored to a particular state or jurisdiction, said Tammy Patrick, chief programs officer for the Election Center, a nonprofit group representing election officials. Commercial products start off with a basic menu of services, and customizing them can require more time and money, she said.

The disadvantage is that the extent of state support depends on government funding. Commercial options can fluctuate in their ability to support clients, she said, but they aren’t as “susceptible to the whims of legislators and appropriators.”

Commercial alternatives could be coming

The Wisconsin Elections Commission is looking at how to give local election officials access to more options and support.

On May 2, the commission invited clerks to join a committee to evaluate commercial e-pollbook options, working with vendors and the general public. The topic is likely to be discussed at the commission’s July meeting. The commission “looks forward to addressing the committee’s feedback,” said WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe.

The committee won’t assess Badger Books, according to the email sent to clerks, and its work “does not mean that Badger Books will be discontinued.” Other states, the email noted, have multiple approved pollbook models.

The Wisconsin Municipal Clerks Association and Wisconsin County Clerks Association have also formed a task force on the future of e-pollbooks, said Hilby, who’s co-leading the group with Portage County Clerk Maria Davis. They aim to compile a list of clerk concerns and expectations by July.

Can commercial options match Badger Book on security?

Forty states had at least one jurisdiction that used e-pollbooks in the 2022 general election. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Colorado use e-pollbooks developed in-house. Other states, like Alabama and Florida, have multiple commercial options. Some states just use one commercial vendor.

Jacobs, the election commission chair, said an advantage of Badger Book is that the commission has access and control over the product, which makes it more secure. It never connects to the internet, unlike many of the added features in commercial products that clerks have said they’d like to have, she said.

“I’m skeptical that a commercial product, especially those that connect to the internet, would be of sufficient security and usability for us to allow for them to be used within our system,” she said.

Haas, Madison’s interim clerk and the former Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator, said the commission also opted for an in-house system because the state’s elections are decentralized and have unique laws. The initial idea, he said, was to see how the in-house system works before considering whether private vendors could move into the market.

While the pilot project worked out, he said, Madison is unlikely to implement e-pollbooks anytime soon. In the long term, he said, the decision will depend on whether the city council wants to pay for it, and whether the election commission can provide enough support.

“Based on what I’ve heard from the staff in working with the technology, I think they would be happy to be able to implement it,” Haas said.

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander at ashur@votebeat.org.

Two sentenced to prison for Millbourne, Pennsylvania, election fraud case

2025-06-18T20:25:22+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletter here.

A federal judge sentenced two former local officials from southeast Pennsylvania to harsher sentences than prosecutors requested, including prison time, for their roles in an attempt to steal a 2021 mayoral election.

“In the court’s view there are very few crimes in our federal code which are more serious than what you have committed,” Judge Harvey Bartle III told defendant Md Nurul Hasan, the former council vice president and mayoral candidate in Millbourne Borough, who pleaded guilty in April to election-related fraud charges. “What you have done is undermine our democratic process.”

The judge sentenced Hasan to 36 months in prison, along with one year of supervised release. Another defendant, former council member Md Rafikul Islam, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, plus one year of supervised release and $1,700 in fines. The judge admonished prosecutors for recommending a lighter punishment for Islam.

The third defendant, council member Md Munsur Ali, will be sentenced next week. Ali is still on the council, despite calls for him to step down.

A brazen case of election fraud unfolds in Millbourne, Pennsylvania. What are the lessons?

Federal investigators charged the men in February with multiple counts of fraudulent voter registration and related crimes in a failed scheme to steal the mayoral election for Hasan, who ran a write-in campaign after losing the Democratic primary to fellow council member Mahabubul Tayub.

Hasan, Ali, and Islam conspired to obtain personal information from non-Millbourne residents and register them to vote in Millbourne, according to the federal indictment, which came more than three years after the election. Hasan and Ali then requested mail ballots on behalf of those voters and cast them for Hasan, the indictment charged. They had ultimately registered nearly three dozen people fraudulently, the indictment said.

Tayub won the general election anyway.

The three men pleaded guilty in April to all counts. Hasan also faces pending charges in state court.

After hearing his sentence and exiting the courtroom, Islam nearly fainted, only to be caught by a bailiff and a friend. Outside the courthouse, Islam said he was helping “a friend” when he allowed Hasan to use his email address in the scheme and did not have anything else to say to voters in Millbourne.

Md Rafikul Islam exits the federal courthouse in Philadelphia on Wednesday after being sentenced for his role in an attempt to steal a 2021 mayoral race in Millbourne, Pennsylvania, for a codefendant, Md Nurul Hasan.

At Hasan’s sentencing hearing, several family members and friends attended to attest to his character, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Dubnoff, who prosecuted the case, said it was because Hasan was in a position to gain the trust of others that he was able to commit these crimes.

Nina Ahmad, a Philadelphia City Council member who, like Hasan, is from Bangladesh, submitted a character reference letter for him, citing his helpfulness and work in the Bangladeshi community.

Ahmad did not respond to a request for comment about the letter.

Jim Allen, elections director for Delaware County, said cases like the one in Millbourne undermine faith in elections everywhere.

“The conspiracy theory minded individuals will take this and think a similar scheme can be done in a statewide or national election,” he told the judge. “There was real damage to the reputation of elections here, everywhere. And it was all due to a selfish motivation to gain a seat dishonestly.”

Both Hasan and Islam were ordered to surrender and begin their sentence by Aug. 15.

Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@votebeat.org.

Texas Legislature deadlocks on giving attorney general more authority to crack down on election crimes

2025-06-01T13:22:53+00:00

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Texas’ free newsletter here.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton appears unlikely to gain new powers to prosecute election crimes after the House and Senate failed Saturday to reach a deadline to work out their differences on how much leeway to grant the state’s top legal office in such cases.

That development in the waning days of the regular 2025 legislative session ending Monday comes two years after the House voted to impeach Paxton on misconduct allegations that included bribery and abuse of office. The Senate later acquitted Paxton.

House Bill 5138 was filed by state Rep. Matt Shaheen, a Republican from North Texas. The Senate passed a version that would have given the attorney general’s office the power to unilaterally prosecute local election crimes when a county fails to do so. The House had previously agreed to grant Paxton’s office more powers to prosecute such cases, but only after local prosecutors considered the case.

Shaheen filed the bill after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, found Paxton’s office does not have authority to independently prosecute criminal election cases in trial courts without the request of a local prosecutor.

Paxton later targeted three of the Republican judges who reached that decision when they were up for reelection, leading a successful campaign to oust them during the 2024 GOP primary. The legislation would have explicitly granted Paxton the authority he sought in the court case.

Paxton is running for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent John Cornyn, creating an opening for a new state attorney general to take office in 2027.

Under the Senate’s version, local law enforcement would be required to send a report to the attorney general’s office if it believes there is probable cause to suspect that an election crime has been committed. The attorney general’s office would then have the authority to prosecute. Local prosecutors and law enforcement would be required to turn over any information they have about election crime investigations to the attorney general’s office.

Under the House’s version of the bill, law enforcement agencies would be required to notify the attorney general’s office when reporting a potential election crime to local prosecutors. The attorney general could investigate only if the local prosecutor took no action on those reports for six months. And under the bill, local prosecutors could challenge the attorney general’s assertion of jurisdiction to investigate.

A conference committee failed to reach an agreement by midnight Saturday, effectively killing the bill. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott could call a special session on the issue if he chooses.

Paxton has made targeting election-related crimes a priority since he took office in 2015. He has pursued more than 300 investigations of suspected crimes by voters but has successfully convicted only a handful.

Republican lawmakers filed similar legislation in 2023 to give him the authority to step into local investigations, but those bills failed to pass. That was the same regular session in which the House impeached Paxton.

Some voting rights advocates have said giving the Texas attorney general more power over local law enforcement offices is unconstitutional. They warned that the bill seemed aimed at increasing election prosecutions, and potentially intimidating voters and local election officials.

Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. She is based in Corpus Christi. Contact Natalia at ncontreras@votebeat.org