“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.
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership to unlock full access. The process is quick and easy. You can even use Apple Pay.
“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.
“Several non-credible bomb threats that briefly disrupted voting at two Georgia polling places originated from Russia,” CNN reports.
Said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: “We’ve heard some threats that were of Russian origin. I don’t know how to describe that that’s viable – we don’t think they are, but in the interest of public safety, we always check that out, and we’ll just continue to be very responsible when we hear about stuff like that. We identified the source, and it was from Russia.”
“In public remarks, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly made unfounded claims about the threat of widespread voting by ‘illegal aliens’ and noncitizens in the 2024 election,” ProPublica reports.
“Away from the spotlight, though, at least one Republican National Committee official is telling volunteer poll watchers a completely different story: that such voting is close to impossible.”
“The Supreme Court on Friday declined to freeze a decision from Pennsylvania’s highest court that required election officials to count provisional ballots cast by people whose mail ballots are invalid because they lacked mandatory secrecy envelopes,” CBS News reports.
“The order from the justices means that election officials in the key battleground state must tally provisional ballots submitted on Election Day by voters who returned defective mail ballots, either because they didn’t include secrecy envelopes or failed to sign or date the outer envelope.”
“Four years ago, President Donald Trump used his bully pulpit to spread lies about the election, leading his supporters to act on their belief in mass voter fraud and eventually attack the U.S. Capitol,” NBC News reports.
“With days to go before the 2024 election, Trump and his allies are running a similar playbook, priming his voters to believe the election may be ‘rigged.’”
“In addition to domestic disinformation campaigns, foreign government influence operations, overseas terrorist groups and domestic extremists are all simultaneously trying to exploit the election for their own gain.”
“Donald Trump’s campaign said it is suing Bucks County after some voters trying to participate in the county’s mail-in ballot voting on demand process faced long lines on the final day,” CBS Philadelphia reports.
“The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday allowed Virginia to resume its purge of voter registrations that the state says is aimed at stopping people who are not U.S. citizens from voting,” the AP reports.
“The high court, over the dissents of the three liberal justices, granted an emergency appeal from Virginia’s Republican administration led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin.”
NPR: U.S. citizens are among the voters removed in Virginia’s controversial purge.
The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office inadvertently posted a spreadsheet to its website with a hidden tab that included voting system passwords, KUSA reports.
“Two local election officials in Michigan have been removed from overseeing the vote, in a forceful move to keep Trump-aligned officials from trying to subvert election rules,” the New York Times reports.
“With the 2024 presidential contest expected to be the most litigated in American history, both campaigns have spent years laying the groundwork for a post-election courtroom battle by recruiting lawyers in every state, wargaming possible scenarios and drafting potential pleadings,” CNN reports.
“Courts across the country have been flooded with lawsuits far earlier than in the 2020 election, mostly from Republican-aligned groups challenging everything from ballot rules to voter qualifications. And the legal challenges could continue for weeks or months to come.”
“The Republican Party has asked the Supreme Court to stop Pennsylvanians from getting a second chance to vote in the Nov. 5 election if their mail-in ballots are rejected as incomplete,” Bloomberg reports.
“In a toughly worded opinion nine days before the election, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Sunday upheld a federal judge’s order requiring Virginia to restore some 1,600 Virginians purged from the state’s voter rolls,” the Richmond Times Dispatch reports.
“Republicans are appealing a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that would allow voters to still vote if their mail ballot is rejected, potentially rocketing a consequential case in the most important swing state to the U.S. Supreme Court on the eve of the election,” Politico reports.
“Cases over whether ballots can still be counted if voters do not return them correctly — such as by not including them in secrecy envelopes, or not dating the mailing envelopes when returning them — have bounced around in state and federal court for years. Broadly, ballots are not counted if voters do not follow all the instructions.”
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.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.