Welcome to Fair Elections Alert, your rundown of key attacks against voting rights and independent elections across the country over the past week. It’s a way to keep up with what the opponents of democracy are focused on. We’ll highlight critical updates you need to be aware of, with a spotlight on the South, the original frontline in the fight for voting rights.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“It’s bad enough when the information is affecting you financially. We shouldn’t be trusting it for people’s precious right to vote.” – Jim Hood (D), former Mississippi Attorney General on Mississippi’s use of Experian data to check voters’ addresses.
NOTABLE TRENDS
FBI Director Said 2020 Election Arrests “Coming Soon” as DOJ Demands 2024 Election Records from Michigan: In a Fox News appearance, FBI Director Kash Patel said arrests would be “coming soon” related to debunked conspiracies that the 2020 election was “rigged.” Patel said the FBI had “all the information [they] need”, including information that “backs President Trump’s claim,” and that they are working with prosecutors, the Department of Justice (DOJ), and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Patel’s comments came as reporting revealed the DOJ was demanding Wayne County, Michigan (Detroit) hand over its November 2024 election records, and ballots. The DOJ’s letter is the latest in their efforts to seize election materials in battleground states, as seen in Arizona and Georgia.
Reminder: The basis of the FBI’s warrant to seize 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia relied on long-debunked conspiracy theories funneled to the FBI by election deniers.
STATE ACTIVITY
Alabama • Structural Barriers Keep 21% of the Voting-Age Population From Being Able to Vote: A new report from Stand Up Mobile, Demos, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice found that more than 815,000 of Alabama’s 3.8 million voting-age population are “missing” from the electoral process due to systemic barriers that disproportionately affect Black voters and disabled voters. 515,000 of the missing voters are registered but inactive while another 300,000 are unregistered.
Some of the key barriers the report pointed to are the lack of early voting, a confusing mail voting process, and Jim Crow-era felony disenfranchisement laws. As of 2024, 227,437 citizens were barred from voting due to convictions classified as “crimes of moral turpitude,” including 82,674 Black residents, making up 6% of the total voting-age population. A little over 25% of non-voters reported illness or disability as their reason for not voting, one of the most common reasons cited.
Indiana • Ban of Student ID For Voting Reinstated During Early Voting: The state’s ban on the use of university-issued IDs for voting is back in effect after the US Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit granted the state’s request to stay the preliminary injunction a district court judge issued last week. The legal back-and-forth comes during early voting for the May 5 primary.
Indiana University student Josh Montagne, one of the plaintiffs in the case, used his student ID to vote on his campus the day after the district court’s injunction was set, April 15, something that other college students can no longer do as of April 20.
Mississippi • Unverified Commercial Data Used to Verify Voters’ Addresses: The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office ran nearly 2 million checks of registered voters’ addresses using Experian’s unverified commercial data in order to “verify their addresses and help determine their status.” The unverified data was used despite the state’s past lawsuit against Experian and disclaimers from the company on the data’s reliability.
Last Month, Mississippi Today uncovered the use of unverified data by the Secretary of State’s Office led to numerous legitimate voters being marked as inactive without their knowledge over the last two years.
For one voter, the secretary of state’s office provided an incorrect address over 150 miles from his home – in a town he had never even visited.
2014, Mississippi filed a federal lawsuit against Experian over errors in its credit reports, including incorrect addresses. In the December 2024 contract for the sharing of this data, Experian said it could not guarantee the “accuracy or reliability” of its data, which the Secretary of State’s office signed off on.
ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY
Election Integrity Network Encouraged Supporters to Work the Polls: The Election Integrity Network (EIN) encouraged their supporters to serve as poll workers and poll watchers. EIN claimed that “citizen oversight is more important than ever” since the SAVE Act has not passed and called for “eyes on every ballot.”
Americans must come to terms with the reality that all our rights as citizens are in peril. MAGA cultists are willing to be peons for the Republican Party, obsessed with tyrannical governing. All of their acts of voter suppression are signs of desperation grounded in lies. Freedom-loving people cannot give in to bullying from the disgraced and corrupt DOJ. Republicans think actions by the DOJ and the FBI lend legitimacy to their unconstitutional attacks on citizens' right to vote. Recognize the weakness in their argument. The overwhelming majority of Americans reject Trump and the Republican Party. That is the strength in our favor. We have to organize that strength and win the elections in the face of their tyranny. Cowardice and acceptance of what is wrong is not an option.
I'm not sure where to post this, BUT I LIVE IN GA AND NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT THIS! The State Legislators left without determining what the method of our General Elections ballots across the State for the 2026 General Election will be. We have used Dominion Voting Machines in all the past elections. HOWEVER, they changed some law or did something when the moved elections from the SOS to a State Elections Board, which has several election deniers on it. Since there was no "new system", the County election offices with have print ballots. So, there will be paper ballots and counted by hand! Just like the election deniers wanted! Georgia is the 8th most populous State with 11.3 million people, with 6.3 million of those people in the Atlanta metro area, which is heavily Democrat. Fulton County, where Trump said there was fraud in 2020, litigated 4 times, with sample hand counts proving there was no fraud and now his admin has confiscated those ballots. Part of the City of Atlanta is in Fulton County. I don't know how you HAND COUNT all of the ballots with no back-up record of how many ballots were casted and the Republicans not manipulate the conditions. I think there needs to be attention to this and possibly lawsuits!