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
“...needlessly injects chaos and uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections.” – Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson regarding the Supreme Court’s conservative majority allowing the Trump administration to proceed with the executive order restricting mail-in ballots.
NOTABLE TRENDS
SCOTUS Allows Trump’s Mail Voting Executive Order to Proceed: The U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency opinion Tuesday allowing Trump to proceed with implementing his executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to help determine which voters receive mail-in ballots. After a federal judge lifted existing blocks to comply with the SCOTUS ruling, Democrats and voting rights groups filed lawsuits, imposing a new freeze on the restrictions. Last week, USPS published final regulations that would restrict mail voting, but said it will not implement them for the 2026 election unless SCOTUS ruled in the Trump administration’s favor.
Corporate America Resumes Donations to Republican Groups Working to Undermine The VRA: Amazon, Google, Meta, and Microsoft have resumed contributions to Republican political groups that are working to undermine the VRA after briefly pulling back following January 6th, reflecting a broader corporate retreat from accountability.
Republican 527 groups are out-raising Democratic counterparts this cycle ($240 million vs. $197 million) with corporations making up 39% of the Republican Attorneys General Association’s (RAGA) fundraising.
The donations come as Republican attorneys general have secured major Supreme Court victories, including the Dobbs decision and the Callais ruling that weakened the Voting Rights Act.
STATE ACTIVITY
California • Shasta County Election Draws Protestors as County Pushes Back on Registrar’s Claims: About 20 demonstrators gathered outside the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office demanding the sheriff seize ballots to investigate claims by Registrar Clint Curtis that June ballots “did not feel or look right” — an action that would violate state law. The sheriff indicated he has no plans to comply with the demonstrators’ demands. In the Redding Elections Office, Registrar Curtis sequestered the primary ballots in a room, sealing the doors with locks, duct tape and red-lettered signs that read: “KEEP OUT PER ROV CLINT CURTIS.”
Colorado • Confidential Voter Data Exposed: Colorado’s Secretary of State’s office accidentally made information for more than 130,000 confidential voters publicly accessible for over a week because of an error in updating a voter registration tool. Agency staff confirmed that 59 voter profiles were actually accessed during the period, though they believe many of these searches were likely people accessing their own information. This is not the first data breach under SOS Griswold. In 2024, office staff posted online a spreadsheet with partial passwords to parts of the state’s voting systems.
Georgia • Appeals Court Overturns Black Voters’ Redistricting Win in Georgia, Citing Callais Decision: A federal appeals court overturned a redistricting victory for Black voters in Georgia, citing SCOTUS’ decision in Louisiana v. Callais that significantly weakened the VRA’s protections against racially discriminatory maps.
North Carolina • New Mail Ballot and Voter ID Rules: A regulatory commission gave final approval to new Republican-backed rules making it easier to disqualify mail-in ballots and tightening voter ID requirements, but the rules appear to have been blocked from taking effect in November after the commission received enough public objection to trigger a mandatory legislative review. State law makers have adjourned and say they do not play to return until after the November election.
Vermont • 900 Removed From Voter Rolls After 25-Year Motor Voter Error: Vermont election officials removed roughly 900 people from the state’s voter rolls after discovering that the DMV had accidentally sent their names to the SOS’ office over 25 years, despite those individuals having opted out of voter registration. None of the 900 had cast ballots, so no elections were affected. Officials said they first became aware of the issue last winter but did not act until New Jersey’s noncitizen registration scandal prompted a closer scrutiny of motor voter programs nationwide.
Wisconsin • County District Attorney Drops Election Bribery Charges Against Elon Musk: A special prosecutor declined to charge Elon Musk for promising $1 million checks to voters ahead of the Wisconsin’s 2025 Supreme Court elections, concluding a jury would not convict given that Musk quickly modified his social media post and no money was every given to anyone for voting.
Wyoming • Governor Pushes Back on “Very Odd” DOJ Election Monitors at Primary Polling Places: Two DOJ monitors visited six polling places during Wyoming’s primary last week, attempting to interview voters and examining voting machines. Gov. Mark Gordon (R) described their behaviors as “very odd” and asked the state attorney general to investigate.
ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY
Trump Allies Float National Emergency Declaration to Seize Control of Elections: During a July 29th War Room podcast, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon predicted Trump would declare a national security emergency to “protect” elections in late August. Earlier this month, Wayne Allyn Root, a rightwing broadcaster, asked Trump if he would “declare a national security emergency for elections”, Trump notably did not shoot down the idea.
Meanwhile, election denier Tina Peters traveled to Washington to pitch Trump administration officials, including Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and DOJ Civil Rights Division Chief Harmeet Dhillon, on a plan to invoke emergency powers and assert unprecedented federal control over election before November.
Peters also visited the White House for a private lunch with Trump, who has many of her goals but has not yet endorsed her proposal.
Mike Lindell Refuses to Pay for Recount, Files Lawsuit Instead: MyPillow founder Mike Lindell backed out of paying $825,000 for a recount of Minnesota’s Republican gubernatorial primary, which he lost by 45,000 votes, after disputing the state’s recount format – which would only record votes cast for him and the winner rather than all seven candidates.
Lindell filed lawsuits against SOS’ office and the State Canvassing Board, and separately filed an election contest in district court and a case with the state Supreme Court.
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