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Lawmakers in Virginia briefly had an idea to keep its voter rolls updated without ERIC
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. A version of this post was originally distributed in Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter. Sign up to get future editions, including the latest reporting from Votebeat bureaus and curated news from other publications, delivered to your inbox every Saturday. Virginia election officials continue to face a major challenge keeping their voter rolls up to date after the state withdrew last year from the data-sharing coalition ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center. As Votebeat recently reported, the state has since spent tens of thousands of dollars...
Court filings reveal secret grand jury interviews that led to indictments of Cochise County supervisors
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.The two Cochise County supervisors who face felony charges for allegedly attempting to interfere with the certification of the county’s midterm election recently filed documents in court that give glimpses of the secret grand jury interviews that led to their indictment.The filings by Supervisors Tom Crosby and Peggy Judd, the board’s two Republicans, reveal how state prosecutors attempted to connect the supervisors’ ploy to expand the county’s hand-count audit of its election results to an alleged conspiracy to...
How Michigan’s clerks are handling early in-person voting for the primary
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.Canton Township Clerk Michael Siegrist characterizes the 2024 election season as “the most challenging cycle ever” as clerks race to implement early in-person voting and other recent changes to state law designed to expand voting access for Michiganders.Voter education, costs, logistics, and determining the most efficient means of running early voting are among the challenges, but Siegrist adds that he thinks the payoff is huge: Michigan voters now have a tremendous amount of access while the state maintains...
Ongoing conspiracies pushed out the elections staff in this Texas county. The new director won’t budge.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.FREDERICKSBURG, Texas — Jim Riley and his team spent weeks preparing for a forum he hoped would remind the public that elections in Gillespie County are “safe, accurate and dependable.”The new county elections administrator expected more than 50 people. He asked a more experienced election official from a neighboring county to be there, in case he needed help clarifying election laws he’s less familiar with. He planned for a mock election, setting up voting equipment that the audience...
Loss of dozens of experienced election officials could mean trouble for Pennsylvania’s 2024 election
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.As the presidential election approaches, Pennsylvania is facing a deficit of experienced election directors, increasing the risk of errors that could cause difficulties for voters, disenfranchise their votes, and ignite disputes over results.In total, 58 officials who served during the November 2019 election have left. Compared with experience levels during the 2019 election, the state has lost a combined 293 years of experience among the top county election officials as of this publishing date, according to a Votebeat...
How to safeguard elections against everything from AI to natural disasters
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. A version of this post was originally distributed in Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter. Sign up to get future editions, including the latest reporting from Votebeat bureaus and curated news from other publications, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.There’s a good case to be made that in the event of an emergency, the best person to have around would be an election official.Floods! Hurricanes! Pandemics! Skeptics! Bomb threats! Mail containing mysterious and terrifying substances! Election officials deal with all of it. They have contingency plans...
How does Arizona vote for presidential nominees? Your questions answered.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.Arizona voters will begin voting Feb. 21 for their choice of presidential nominee for the November ballot.Counties will begin sending ballots out to Democrats and Republicans on the state’s early voting list and early in-person voting will begin for the presidential preference election.This March 19 election, which political parties use to select their presidential candidates, is separate from the state’s primary election for all other federal, state and local candidates, which will happen on July 30.Here are answers...
Votebeat is coming to Wisconsin. Here’s what you can expect.
Exciting news! Votebeat will soon be adding Wisconsin to our coverage area, with the hiring of a new local reporter there.This is a critical time to cover voting in Wisconsin — a pivotal 2024 swing state that conspiracy theorists and hyper-partisans have affixed a target to. Former President Trump and Republicans want to win the state back, and one strategy has been to rewrite the voting rules from the policies of 2020, when Democrats won by a narrow margin. Court decisions and new laws since then have changed many rules, like outlawing drop boxes and tweaking the witness requirement for...
Following the paper trail: How Cochise County got stuck with 10 tons of ballot paper it can’t use
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.Paper rolls the size of giant tires, together weighing 10 tons, are stacked up high inside a ballot printing warehouse in an industrial area of Phoenix.Meanwhile, in a paper mill somewhere in Canada, there’s a 350-pound, 6-foot-long machine that imprinted secret watermarks on that paper.If you can pick them up (you’ll need a crane), they could soon be yours!You may be asking how we got here. Like so much in Arizona elections, it’s a long story that starts...
This Pa. activist is the source of false and flawed election claims gaining traction across the country
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.On Jan. 6, 2021, as former President Donald Trump rallied his supporters, he used a statistic that, though false, was making the rounds: “In Pennsylvania, you had 205,000 more votes than you had voters,” he screamed, throwing his arms wide open in front of thousands of angry followers. “This is a mathematical impossibility unless you want to say it’s a total fraud.”The number appears to be the work of Heather Honey, a Pennsylvania-based “election integrity” investigator whose research...
It took me three tries to register to vote — and I’m a voting reporter
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.A version of this post was originally distributed in Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter. Sign up to get future editions, including the latest reporting from Votebeat bureaus and curated news from other publications, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.When I started working at Votebeat more than a year ago, I knew little about elections. I wasn’t eligible to vote, and for most of my adult life, the election process was confusing and intimidating. I wanted to learn as much as I could about how elections worked...
Everything you need to know to vote in Michigan’s presidential primary
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.When Michiganders go to the polls this month to cast a ballot in the presidential primaries, it will be the first chance for every voter to take advantage of the state’s new early in-person option — one feature in a series of changes for elections this year based on the passage of Ballot Proposal 2 in 2022.The Feb. 27 primary ballot features presidential candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties, including frontrunners President Joe Biden and Donald Trump,...
Arizona moves up 2024 primary as part of bipartisan fixes to election timeline problems
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.Arizona has fixed a looming crisis for the election in a way that election officials say will allow them to submit presidential results to Congress in time. Republicans are touting the fix as a boon for election integrity, and Democrats say it protects voters in the long run.State lawmakers voted nearly unanimously Thursday in favor of a bill meant to fix the problem by altering several deadlines in state law, including moving the primary election up a week...
A new law aimed to increase voting access in rural counties. In South Texas it’s having the opposite effect.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.SINTON, Texas — At church last month, Pam Hill’s neighbor approached her after service and asked her if she’d be opening an early voting location in their small town of Odem, just as in previous election years.“I can’t. I’m sorry,” answered Hill, who has run elections in San Patricio County for more than two decades. “You’ll either have to wait for Election Day, or you’ll have to come to Sinton.”Sinton, the South Texas county’s seat, is about 7...
AI technology sparks new worries, but poses familiar challenges to elections
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. A version of this post was originally distributed in Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter. Sign up to get future editions, including the latest reporting from Votebeat bureaus and curated news from other publications, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.Recently the internet has been Freaking Out about artificial intelligence. I’m sure you’ve noticed.The worries are not unfounded. Last month, what appears to be an AI-generated robocall in a voice made to sound like President Joe Biden went out to New Hampshire voters, telling Democrats not to...
Arizona Republicans sue secretary of state over rules on election certification, claiming disenfranchisement
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.Update, Feb. 1: This story has been updated to reflect a response from Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.Arizona Republicans filed a lawsuit Wednesday asking a judge to throw out numerous election rules made by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, including one that forces supervisors to certify their election results without delay or changes and another that could potentially lead to a county’s election results not being counted if county officials don’t finalize them on time.The rules are included...
Conspiratorial rumblings about the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence evoke ‘Zuckerbucks’
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. A version of this post was originally distributed in Votebeat’s free weekly newsletter. Sign up to get future editions, including the latest reporting from Votebeat bureaus and curated news from other publications, delivered to your inbox every Saturday.It turns out that right-wing activists have learned the same lesson as Hollywood: Everyone loves a sequel.You may remember the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life from the so-called “Zuckerbucks” controversy during the 2020 election. That was when a couple of nonprofits including the Center for...
Arizona GOP chairman contender asked county supervisors not to certify 2022 election
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.Update, Jan 29: The Arizona Republican Party voted on Saturday, Jan. 27 to elect Gina Swoboda as chairman of the party.A candidate to chair the Arizona Republican Party called on Maricopa County supervisors in 2022 to delay certifying the state’s midterm election, which would have violated state law, according to an email obtained by Votebeat.Jim O’Connor, chairman of the Arizona Corporation Commission, sent an email to Maricopa County supervisors on Nov. 27, 2022, asking them to delay certifying the...
Election distrust in Cochise County runs deep, and change is slow to come
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for our free newsletters here.Sierra Vista — At the base of the Huachuca Mountains near the Mexican border, in a city built next to an Army base, crowds gathered to look at the machines that some of them believe have been stealing their votes.Chris Wlaschin, the security lead for the machine manufacturer Election Systems & Software, brought the equipment to this city to try and convince them otherwise. Attempting to connect with the veteran-heavy audience, he told them he, too, was a...
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Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization committed to reporting the nuanced truth about elections and voting at a time of crisis in America. Our mission is to help people understand our system of democracy so they can participate in strengthening it. Our approach is to cover and explain the mechanics of voting — no political polls, candidate platforms, or Election Day results; instead we will focus on how elections are run, from early and mail-in voting to voter registration and election security. Because we believe that elections are fundamentally a local issue, our coverage is rooted in local communities. Votebeat’s stories are available at no cost to readers, as well as to all local and national news outlets.
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