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
“Republican politicians have created a narrative that voter fraud is a threat, so agencies need to be engaged in policies demonstrating they’re doing something about it.” – Mark Jones, a fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, regarding Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services memo for nursing home residents.
NOTABLE TRENDS
Election Deniers Now Hold Key Local Election Roles in Critical Midterm Counties: A New York Times review of a new Voting Rights Lab database found that 25 county-level elections officials who have taken office since 2024 have publicly aligned with the election denier movement – all in counties with key House, Senate, or statewide midterm races.
These officials have either publicly espoused false claims that Trump won the 2020 election, alleged widespread fraud, or taken direct action to support those theories.
They add to at least 69 election-skeptic officials already in office nationwide, 41 of whom have taken direct action to interfere with elections, including attempting to delay or deny certification, or have direct ties to activist election denier groups.
CISA Admits No Election Security Staff Will Be in Place Before Midterms: Despite re-embracing CISA and promising to rebuild its election security workforce, the Trump administration informed the Senate Homeland Security Committee that none of the rehired staff will be in place before the November midterms. CISA says it will rely on a security mechanism used during the World Cup and has promised a public plan.
Election officials and non-partisan experts warn it’s too late in the election cycle for any major changes to their security protocols, and they are skeptical that the agency’s hollowed-out workforce can deliver baseline support to the states in time.
Federal Agency Shifts Nursing Home Voting Guidance Away From Access Toward Fraud Prevention: A July 20 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services memo rescinded previous voting guidance for nursing home residents, shifting emphasis from ensuring access to preventing voter fraud. Richard Mollot, executive director of the NY-based Long Term Care Community Coalition, said CMS’ deliberate change in emphasis is a worrying sign that voting will suffer even more among a population already facing high obstacles to casting a ballot.
“Most nursing homes will do as little as possible; if you’re not affirmatively telling them what to do, they won’t do it,” he said.
Redistricting Push Continues Post-Callais Decision:
Mississippi lawmakers held their first redistricting committee meeting since SCOTUS’ Callais ruling that gutted the Voting Rights Act, scheduling eight public hearings across the state over the next two months. Voting rights activists worry the hearings are a facade and lawmakers have already made up their mind to dismantle majority Black districts.
Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins (R) blocked a public referendum on the state’s new congressional map hours before primary polls closed, declaring the petition unconstitutional despite more than 300,000 submitted signatures by People Not Politicians. The decision was immediately challenged in court.
Ballot and Voting Machine Errors Affect Thousands:
In Wyandotte County, Kansas, nearly 3,000 mail-in ballots were printed with an incorrect return address, causing completed ballots to be returned to voters instead of the election office – more than half remain unaccounted for.
In Shelby County, Tennessee, a voting machine error left several judicial races off ballots at an early voting location, affecting around 300 voters, the same races that were missing from 700 absentee ballots mailed in early July.
Thousands Removed From Voter Rolls: More than 600 U.S. citizens were mistakenly flagged as possible noncitizens and removed from Alaska’s active voters list. The flags came after the Alaska Division of Elections compared its citizenship data to DMV records, raising questions about why DMV data was used rather than more reliable annual citizenship data from the Permanent Fund Dividend division, which collects data on citizenship annually.
In Nevada, Washoe County Registrar of Voters has moved 8,755 voters to inactive status after they failed to respond to address confirmation notices, meaning they will no longer automatically receive mail ballots.
STATE ACTIVITY
New Jersey • Registration Error Puts Noncitizens at Risk of Deportation: The roughly 400 noncitizens who cast ballots after being erroneously registered to vote in New Jersey face serious risk of criminal prosecution and deportation under a 1996 immigration law. Critically, even noncitizens who were unknowingly registered but never voted could be deemed “permanently inadmissible” to the United States under the same law.
North Carolina • State Auditor Liaison Advised GOP Officials on How to Fire Election Directors and Drop Sunday Voting: Newly released public records reveal that Dallas Woodhouse, the state auditor’s former election liaison, sent Republican county board members a step-by-step guide on how to fire their local election directors, including documents templates and instructions for closed sessions, months before his role in influencing early voting plans became public.
Records also show Woodhouse explicitly advised multiple county boards to eliminate Sunday early voting, acknowledging the move would cause public backlash but suggested expanded Saturday hours as cover.
Twenty North Carolina counties have now failed to reach unanimous early voting agreements, with 15 disagreeing specifically over Sunday voting.
South Carolina • Voter Registration Probed Uses of IP Addresses: The Trump administration has a new tactic in its “voter fraud” investigations, requesting the IP addresses of voters who registered online. An FBI agent in South Carolina sought the IP address of a voter’s online registration from state and local officials, receiving the data in June.
Former senior Justice Department officials called the move atypical and inappropriate, warning it amounts to a fishing expedition into private voter data.
With 43 states allowing online voter registration, the implications of the tactic are nationwide.
ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY
Financial Ties Between Election Denier Cleta Mitchell and DHS Election Official Heather Honey Revealed: Tax filings show that former Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell’s foundation paid election conspiracy theorist Heather Honey, now a DHS election integrity official, more than $72,000 last fiscal year and $121,000 the year prior through Honey’s consulting company.
Honey is also listed as a vice president and director of Mitchell’s foundation, revealing that their long track record of spreading false voter fraud claims is also backed by a financial relationship.
Honey founded the anti-voting Pennsylvania Fair Elections group, which falls under the Election Integrity Network (EIN) created and run by Mitchell.
Michigan Partially Grants RNC Request for Poll Worker Personal Information: The Michigan Department of State granted an RNC Freedom of Information Act request for the personal information of prospective poll workers but redacted all identifying information. Democrats warned the request echoed Republican efforts to identify and intimidate poll workers, pointing to similar tactics used in Georgia.
This request is the latest in a series of attempts by Republican officials to gain information about and exert control over Michigan’s elections – including a blocked DOJ request for Michigan’s un-redacted voter rolls, a halted executive order from President Donald Trump to challenge states’ control of election administration, and a plan from the DOJ to put federal election monitors in three Michigan cities.
“Vote, & the choice is yours. Don’t vote! & the choice is theirs!” —- The League of Women Voters.