Rick Hasen: “He’s offering a chance to win a million dollars, which is a thing of value, and it’s only offered to people who have voted.”
“One might say he’s not inducing people, but instead rewarding them. I don’t think this helps, because the statute likely covers rewarding as well—think of people who decide to vote in order to attend the talk for the lottery chance to win a million dollars.”
“President Donald Trump has signed a new executive order that would require prospective voters to show proof of citizenship to register to vote. The order’s sweeping changes test the power of Trump’s presidential authority,” NPR reports.
“Voting rights advocates worry the new provisions could block millions of Americans from voting if enacted, and say Trump lacks the legal authority to make such changes.”
“President Donald Trump signed an executive order Tuesday that would seek to cut federal grants to states who don’t adopt tougher standards for voter registration, the latest Republican step in the political fight over access to the voter rolls,” Bloomberg reports.
“The executive order would add a question to the national voter registration form explicitly asking registrants to affirm they are U.S. citizens.”
“The effort would also reduce grants for states to update their election-related cybersecurity and voting equipment if the administration deems they have not done enough to secure their election rolls.”
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“Georgia election officials plan to cancel about 455,000 inactive voter registrations this summer, one of the largest registration removals in U.S. history,” the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
“A Wisconsin election lawyer says billionaire Elon Musk’s plan to provide $100 in cash to people who sign an election petition may run afoul of state law,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
A Republican Board of Elections employee in New York City was charged with taking kickbacks in exchange for jobs working the polls, the New York Times reports.
Politico: “The law would have made more than 800,000 people eligible to vote in municipal contests such as mayoral races….”
“Republicans argued the state constitution prohibits all noncitizens from casting ballots. Democrats who defended the law said the constitution’s language should be viewed as a floor rather than a ceiling.”
“The Department of Homeland Security, as part of an evaluation of its election security mission, said on Tuesday that personnel focused on misinformation, disinformation and foreign influence operations aimed at U.S. elections have been placed on administrative leave,” Reuters reports.
“The Trump administration this week eliminated much of the federal government’s front line of defense against foreign interference in U.S. elections,” the Washington Post reports.
“The move, which follows years of Trump and his allies disputing the role that Russian influence campaigns played in his first successful bid for president, alarmed state election officials and election security experts, who warned that safeguarding Americans from foreign disinformation campaigns will be difficult if no one at the federal level is doing that work.”
“Republicans made almost universal gains in mail voting during the 2024 election, eroding a key Democratic advantage in nearly every state that tracks party registration,” the New York Times reports.
“The Republican rise in the use of mail voting was almost always accompanied by a drop in registered Democrats casting a mail ballot, allowing Republicans to make significant inroads in battleground states like Pennsylvania, red states like Florida and blue states like Connecticut.”
“The turnaround was remarkable given Republicans’ yearslong skepticism toward mail voting, fueled by President-elect Donald J. Trump’s false claims about fraud. The method was once widely embraced by Republicans in Southern and rural states but fell out of favor during and after the 2020 election as Mr. Trump and his allies argued that the only safe way to vote was in person on Election Day.”
“Americans are more confident in the country’s election system than they have been at any time since the 2020 election, according to a new study — a shift owed to a sea change in Republican sentiment since Donald J. Trump’s election,” the New York Times reports.
“The findings, which echo other post-election polling, underscore the role Mr. Trump played in encouraging Republican suspicion of unwelcome results, and reveal stark differences in how Republican and Democratic voters have handled recent losses.”
The election between Georgia state Rep. Mack Jackson (D) and Tracy Wheeler (R) might be thrown out because ineligible voters were allowed to cast ballots, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.
Jackson received just 48 more votes than Wheeler in the election last month.
“Alaska will keep ranked choice voting and open primaries,” Alaska Public Media reports.
“The repeal effort failed by 743 votes, or about a quarter of one percentage point, according to the Division of Elections. That’s almost exactly the margin reflected in official results certified late last month, which showed the measure failing by 737 out of more than 300,000 votes.”
The Guardian: “Twenty ballots went missing in a Minnesota precinct this November, the type of error that would typically result in an internal investigation but not receive much public attention. But the implications are much greater right now, as the race for the district’s state house seat is separated by 14 votes, and that seat will determine whether Republicans win control of the chamber.”
“The missing ballots, which were probably the result of human error, were never counted. Officials tried to track them down, only to learn that they had been sent to the shredder.”
A new Pew Research survey finds American voters overwhelmingly say the 2024 elections across the country and in their own communities were run well this year, and they express high levels of confidence that votes were counted accurately.
This stands in stark contrast to four years ago, when far fewer voters expressed confidence. Today, 88% of voters say they are at least somewhat confident that elections across the United States were run and administered well, up from 59% of voters in 2020.
“Louisiana lawmakers have passed a bill that will change the state’s election process for certain primary races, including Congress and the state Supreme Court,” the AP reports.
“Candidates will now participate in a party primary with the winner of the Democratic primary and the Republican primary going on to face each other in the general election. Candidates without party affiliations will automatically advance to the general election if they meet qualifying requirements that include fees and petitions.”
“This is a change from the state’s unique ‘jungle primary‘ when all candidates run on the same ballot regardless of their party affiliation. In a jungle primary, voters can choose any candidate, even if they do not align with the voters’ registered party.”
“A ballot measure seeking to repeal open primaries and ranked choice voting in Alaska is narrowly on track to lose, after the state Division of Elections counted almost 4,000 absentee ballots on Monday,” the Anchorage Daily News reports.
“In at least four counties — Bucks, Philadelphia, Centre and Montgomery — local election officials are acting in open defiance of a ruling from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court that arrived weeks before the election. The court found that mail ballots that are missing the date on the outer envelope, or have the wrong date, cannot be counted for this election, the New York Times reports.
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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