“Democratic politicians and activists are quietly lobbying to upend the way the party picks its presidential nominee by urging the use of ranked-choice voting,” Axios reports.
“Supporters of the change — which would allow voters to rank candidates in order of preference — told those at a DNC breakfast gathering in D.C. that it would strengthen and unite the party.“
“The largest city in Alaska is about to undertake an experiment that feels both inevitable and impossibly futuristic in an era of pervasive mistrust toward elections: allowing all voters to cast ballots from their smartphones,” the New York Times reports.
“The Supreme Court said on Monday that it would hear a challenge to Mississippi’s counting of mail-in ballots received after Election Day, a case that could upend mail-in rules in dozens of states, creating chaos ahead of the 2026 elections,” the New York Times reports.
“The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, asks the justices to determine the meaning of ‘Election Day.’ It is a potential blockbuster and adds to the court’s other elections and voting cases for the term, which include a case about who can sue to challenge Illinois’ mail-in ballot rules and a challenge to the Louisiana congressional district map that could gut a remaining pillar of the Voting Rights Act.”
“We’re getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today. Kentucky votes next year. You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City or the Governor of Virginia. Sorry.”
— Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams (R), quoted by Newsweek, in a note to voters.
“New York voters are turning out early in high numbers for a mayoral race that’s captured the country’s attention,” Bloomberg reports.
“After six days of early voting, 398,477 ballots have been cast, according to the New York City Board of Elections. That’s more than double the total of early voters in the 2021 general election and already higher than the 384,338 early votes during June’s primary.”
A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll in Georgia found more than one-third of Democratic primary voters say they’re either “not so confident” or “not at all confident” that the 2026 primary will be conducted fairly and accurately.
Slate: “Jack Posobiec is very concerned about voter fraud. An influential MAGA voice and prominent conspiracy theorist, he’s perhaps best known for amplifying the 2016 ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy, which culminated in a man firing a gun in a D.C. pizza restaurant.”
“In the years since, Posobiec has loudly espoused a range of debunked conspiracy theories. That includes the GOP theory—once semi-fringe and now thoroughly MAGA mainstreamed—that Democrats have won elections via millions of fraudulent votes. The Republican National Committee last fall enlisted him to speak to poll watchers about election security. Posobiec is particularly focused on Pennsylvania, repeatedly accusing the state’s Democratic officials of fraud, even spreading conspiracy theories that were followed by an RNC lawsuit.”
“The focus on voter fraud in Pennsylvania is particularly ironic because it sure looks like, and a trail of documentation suggests, that Posobiec is living in Maryland but voting in Pennsylvania. If so, that would be a violation of voting laws, experts say.”
“Nevada’s top federal prosecutor has asked the FBI to investigate debunked Republican claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election, a probe she hopes will influence congressional races and ensnare Democrats,” Reuters reports.
“The Department of Justice sued six states, including Pennsylvania, the nation’s biggest presidential battleground, as the Trump administration escalates its efforts to obtain the personal and private information of voters,” the New York Times reports.
“The lawsuits, filed against California, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania, follows similar suits that the department brought against Maine and Oregon, two Democratic-controlled states.”
“All of those states have rebuffed previous demands from the Justice Department to gain access to statewide voter rolls that include sensitive information, such as drivers license numbers and partial Social Security numbers.”
“The Justice Department is compiling the largest set of national voter roll data it has ever collected, buttressing an effort by President Trump and his supporters to try to prove long-running, unsubstantiated claims that droves of undocumented immigrants have voted illegally,” the New York Times reports.
“A tone-deaf Superior Court Judge, John Deitch, has scheduled a hearing for October 3 to first consider a lawsuit filed by a Hillside municipal candidate running in the November 4 general election, even though vote-by-mail ballots are scheduled to go out on September 20,” the New Jersey Globe reports.
“President Trump said late Saturday that he would issue an executive order to require voter identification for all U.S. elections, a continuation of his efforts to overhaul the nation’s election laws, which he has long attacked and falsely blamed for his 2020 election loss,” the New York Times reports.
“A conservative election researcher whose faulty findings on voter data were cited by President Donald Trump as he tried to overturn his 2020 election loss has been appointed to an election integrity role at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” the AP reports.
“Pennsylvania activist Heather Honey is now serving as the deputy assistant secretary for election integrity in the department’s Office of Strategy, Policy and Plans, an organizational chart on its website shows.”
“Officials in a large North Texas county decided this week to cut more than 100 Election Day polling sites and reduce the number of early voting locations, amid growing concern about GOP efforts to limit voting access ahead of next year’s midterm elections,” ProPublica reports.
“The 3-2 vote on Tuesday by commissioners in Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth, came one day after President Donald Trump vowed to end the use of mail-in ballots.”
More than half of Americans supported allowing no-excuse mail-in voting in a Pew Research Center poll despite President Trump’s promise to end the practice he denounced as “fraudulent.”
A 58% majority, including 83% of Democrats and 32% of Republicans, supported mail-in voting.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) claimed on Fox Business that he’s spoken to “large numbers” of dead people who had mail ballots sent to them.
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.
