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.
“Voting is a constitutional right…It is not a lunch special. You have a constitutional right to vote; you don’t have a constitutional right to a breadstick or a bowl of pasta.” – Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) on the bizarre comparison between Olive Garden's requirement for a photo ID for Never-ending Pasta and voter ID requirements.
House Republicans Attempt to Pass SAVE Act Again: The House passed (232-198) the Stop Insider Trading Act along party lines which would bar lawmakers, their spouses and dependent children from buying individual stocks but allow them to keep and sell stocks they already own.
The legislation is expected dead-on-arrival in the Senate because House GOP leadership inserted into it an unrelated requirement that voters present photo identification in federal elections, a proposal that is unlikely to gain the needed votes from Senate Democrats.
DHS Chief Reiterated Trump’s False Claims About Voting Security: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin threatened state officials with fines and criminal charges last Friday if they do not comply with the administration’s efforts to change election policies, while reiterating many of Trump’s unsubstantiated claims about the security of American elections. Mullin also repeated claims that foreign actors could exploit vulnerabilities identified in election systems to change votes, despite offering no evidence that such a breach has ever occurred.
Mullin said DHS had identified more than 250,000 potential non-citizens illegally registered to vote in just four states: California, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
Neither Trump nor Mullin offered any specifics on how they derived those numbers, and officials in California, Pennsylvania, and Nevada quickly pushed back on the claims.
Voter Registration Error Surfaces Nationwide in Wake of Trump’s Election Interference Address: A software error by DMV vendor IDEMIA registered approximately 6,600 noncitizens to vote in New Jersey while they were obtaining driver’s licenses, with about 400 casting ballots in at least one election. New Jersey cut ties with the vendor on July 21, though IDEMIA pushed back on the characterization of the issues as an error, saying it is the state’s SOS responsibility to verify voter registration accuracy.
The DOJ has opened an investigation, and a separate congressional investigation is planned for the fall. The error raised concerns beyond New Jersey as more than half of states use IDEMIA for DMV services.
Ballot Errors Continue to Affect Thousands of Voters in Washington and Missouri: Spokane County, Washington is sending out thousands of replacement ballots after a boundary line error prevented nearly 6,000 voters from being placed in the correct districts. In Kansas City, Missouri 251 voters cast in-person absentee ballots missing two at-large Jackson County races.
It is unclear as to what caused the error with Lauri Ealom, the board’s Democratic director, saying it was too technical to explain and did not want to cause further alarm about the process.
Alaska • Up to 3,500 Purged From Voter Rolls: Alaska removed between 3,000 to 3,500 residents from its active voter list, claiming they may be noncitizens. The scale of the new removals is notable as last year’s inactive voter list showed 541 possible noncitizen registrations. If 3,500 people were added to the inactive list, that would represent a 700% increase.
Based on interviews, many of those flagged are naturalized citizens who obtained driver’s licenses before becoming citizens and have not received a new license since.
The removals require affected voters to provide extra identity verification or face being purged from the rolls entirely.
Arizona • Republican Nominee for Secretary of State is a Far-Right Election Denier: Far-right state lawmaker and election attorney Alexander Kolodin won the GOP nomination for Arizona secretary of state. Kolodin was sanctioned by the Arizona State Bar in 2023 for his part in lawsuits challenging the 2020 election that made implausible and evidence-free claims of massive election fraud.
Kolodin is a member of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus who has backed changes to Arizona election laws that are deeply unpopular with voters, including banning no-excuse vote-by-mail and returning to voting in tiny precincts, which election officials said was logistically impossible.
North Carolina State Election Board Moves to Restrict Mail Ballots and Campus Early Voting: The North Carolina Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines to approve a measure allowing county election boards staff to disqualify absentee ballots with “irregularities.” Examples include not properly sealing a ballot or using the wrong type of envelope. Staff should contact voters, but without appropriate action, the ballots may be tossed. The rules still require approval from a Republican-appointed Rules Commission.
Separately, the Guilford County Board of Elections voted to exclude early voting sites at North Carolina A&T and UNC Greensboro, despite repeated student calls to keep in place campus sites used in the 2024 general election.
Because the board did not reach a unanimous decision, the final early voting map for Guilford County will be up to the discretion of the State Board of Elections.
EIN Brings Model Election Handbook to ALEC Conference: The Election Integrity Network is presenting to state lawmakers at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) conference with their Model Election Laws handbook, offering a policy blueprint focused on voter identity verification, ballot security, and election auditing which was framed as an alternative to what the group calls “California-style elections.”
The timing is significant with the Trump administration already pressuring states through funding threats, this handbook gives state lawmakers a ready-made legal and policy framework to rapidly implement voting restrictions.
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