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
“They can try all the suppression tactics they want, but we’re still going to vote. Our lives depend on it.” – Deborah Maxwell, president of the NC NAACP, on voters still turning out despite the removal of Sundays from early voting schedules.
NOTABLE TRENDS
Trump Administration Again Asks Supreme Court to Lift Block on Mail Voting Order: The DOJ filed an emergency request asking SCOTUS to pause a federal judge’s ruling blocking nationwide enforcement of Trump’s mail voting executive order, urging the court to clarify that the ruling covers the most recent decision as well.
The administration continues to argue the lawsuits are premature because no concrete actions have been taken that directly harm plaintiffs.
State Election Officials Confront CISA Over DHS Threats: CISA held a conference call with state election officials to discuss midterm security, but some officials confronted the agency over DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s recent threats to prosecute election officials who don’t cooperate with the Trump administration. One of these election officials on the call said, “why should we trust working with you all as an agency when your boss says that he wants to jail us? Another secretary apparently made a comment that the briefing felt more like security theater than actually helping these election officials.”
STATE ACTIVITY
Alaska • Billionaires Spend Millions On Ballot Measure to Repeal RCV & Open Primary System: Elon Musk contributed $1.5 million to a campaign seeking to repeal Alaska’s ranked-choice voting and open primary system through Ballot Measure 2, joining other billionaire mega-donors including Dick Uihlein, Jeff Yass, and Timothy Mellon. The measure would revert Alaska to closed partisan primaries and also eliminate campaign finance disclosure laws.
Arkansas • Secretary of State Rejects Over 108,000 Petition Signatures: Secretary of State Cole Jester rejected all 108,000+ signatures submitted for a citizen-led ballot initiative to strengthen the state’s direct democracy process, citing a minor difference in the measure’s popular name from what the Attorney General approved. The group behind the initiative says Jester had previously approved the exact same name a year ago. Petition signers are now suing, and the group is asking the Arkansas Supreme Court to intervene and provisionally certify the amendment for the November ballot with a 30-day cure period.
North Carolina • Counties Drop Sunday Early Voting & Sites: The State Board of Elections approved early voting plans for 80 counties with about a dozen dropping Sunday hours they had in 2022. Critics say the elimination of Sunday voting, which is central to Black churches’ Souls to the Polls effort, is part of a deliberate pattern of making voting harder for Black voters.
New records reveal that former state auditor elections liaison Dallas Woodhouse recommended that counties eliminate Sunday voting hours and sites, including in Columbus County, and told two county elections chairs what Republicans on the state Board of Elections would or would not approve and what the state GOP wanted.
Pennsylvania • Bill Would Expand Voter Roll Purge Methods: A Republican-sponsored bill SB 1429 would expand the methods used to remove deceased voters from the rolls, shortening reporting timelines, and broaden the data sources used to identify voters who have moved, including newspaper obituaries and private-sector data providers. Voters whose registrations are canceled would receive notice by mail and have 10 days to appear before their county election commission to have their registration reinstated if removed in error.
Texas • Appeals Court Restored Several Provisions of Omnibus 2021 Anti-Voting Law: The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals restored several pieces of the omnibus anti-voting law SB 1 (2021) that overhauled mail and assisted voting, including requiring voters to provide an ID number of Social Security number on mail ballot applications and have them match the state’s records. The appeals court overturned a lower court that had blocked the provisions, finding that the plaintiffs lacked standing on most of their complaints.
Wisconsin • County Absentee Ballot Delay Fuels Election Conspiracy Claim: A human error at Milwaukee’s Central Count delayed roughly 28,000 absentee ballot results for hours during the Tuesday primary, immediately drawing conspiracy claims from right-wing commentators despite election officials confirming the cause was a human error. Milwaukee officials say that the underlying problem stems from under-resource central operations and state law that prevents election staff from processing absentee ballots before Election Day.
ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY
Conservative Group Targets Pennsylvania Jury Records in “Voter Fraud” Hunt: Early Vote Action led by Trump ally Scott Presler is comparing lists of people disqualified from jury duty with county voter rolls in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, claiming the method can identify noncitizen voters. Election experts note that noncitizenship is just one of several reasons a person may be disqualified from jury duty with others including age, residency, and language ability — meaning the methodology could flag many eligible voters as suspected noncitizens.
I am not surprised by the Republican effort to suppress the democratic vote, especially the Black vote. Republican policies are a hard sell to gain popular support. So, interfering with the numbers is their only way to remain in power. Their effort to deny is our impetus to succeed. What concerns me, however, is the possible division within the Democratic effort due to the socialist trend. The Democratic Party as a whole must understand that party unity is our salvation. Trump has destroyed the social and economic fabric of America, and it will take some form of socialist response to provide the safety net Americans need to reestablish a government by and for the people. A decade of abuse will not be transformed in one political cycle. We must stay together and restore the rule of law and the belief in the Constitution as our guiding principle. That's the prize we're fighting for.
Thanks for all of this news!