Attention to the Unseen

The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court on Monday dealt President Trump a major blow when it blocked his executive order to restrict mail ballots. But Mr. Trump’s battle to assert control over the election process is far from finished. The stymied attempt to have the U.S. Postal Service screen mail ballots was just one piece of a broader effort involving the full power of the federal government to take more control of state-run elections. Just days before the…

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Politico reports: The Supreme Court has rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to enforce new mail-in ballot delivery rules that threatened to severely disrupt the looming midterm elections. In a ruling Monday, the justices left in place a lower-court decision that blocked the Postal Service from implementing the new requirements in the coming weeks due to the potential that millions of voters could be disenfranchised by not having their ballots delivered. Most of the high court’s majority did not offer a…

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The New York Times reports: Investigators may have broken state laws under the direction of top Homeland Security leaders by posing as voters as part of an expansive effort to find noncitizens on the nation’s voter rolls, according to a federal whistle-blower’s account released on Monday. The authorities also required agents to meet quotas, which afforded them a mere 12 minutes to review each voter record. The effort has relied on questionable data, and has likely improperly flagged U.S. citizens…

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Politico reports: Republican chief election officials from seven states said that it’s too late for President Donald Trump’s mail-in ballot order to be implemented before the midterm election, urging the Supreme Court to not allow the rule to go into effect in a brief submitted to the court on Wednesday. Trump’s order, signed in March, aimed to crack down on mail-in voting and assert federal control ahead of November’s election. In August, the U.S. Postal Service released a final rule…

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18 U.S. Code § 597 – Expenditures to influence voting: Whoever makes or offers to make an expenditure to any person, either to vote or withhold his vote, or to vote for or against any candidate; and Whoever solicits, accepts, or receives any such expenditure in consideration of his vote or the withholding of his vote— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; and if the violation was willful, shall be fined…

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Politico reports: A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected ICE’s effort to detain millions of people without bond, comparing it to the “historical stain” of Japanese internment during World War II. “Mass detention of marginalized individuals without due process harkens back to some of the darkest moments in our country’s history,” 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Nicole Berner, a Biden appointee, wrote in a 2-1 majority opinion joined by Judge Barbara Keenan, an Obama appointee. “Those shameful and abhorrent…

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Marc Elias writes: We are less than two months until Election Day for the most important midterms of our lifetime. Ballots have already started to be sent out. The threats to free and fair elections are real and growing more serious by the day. What once seemed like an abstract threat has now become concrete. The risk of a rigged election is no longer unthinkable. The need for action can no longer be delayed or denied. I have often said…

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The Washington Post reports: President Donald Trump is running out of time in his quest to limit voting by mail, as a judge holds up his plans, and election officials begin sending ballots to voters in two swing states and gear up to send them across the country. Nearly a third of voters used mail ballots in 2024, and last-minute changes to how they’re handled could lead to undelivered ballots and uncounted votes. Trump has long argued that mail ballots…

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Democracy Docket reports: A federal judge in Massachusetts barred the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Friday from advancing new mail voting restrictions that, if carried out, could leave vast numbers of people unable to cast a ballot by mail this fall. The decision is a massive win for access to the ballot, though the administration is all but certain to appeal. Issuing her ruling a day after a pivotal hearing in Boston, U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani said USPS’s rule, which…

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The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to immediately allow new restrictions on mail-in balloting, potentially setting up a major legal clash that could affect millions of voters for November’s midterm elections. The fight could possibly upend election procedures just as states begin to send out mail-in ballots in pivotal contests that will determine control of the U.S. House and Senate. Some communities in Wisconsin mailed ballots to voters this week, North Carolina is…

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The Guardian reports: Reform UK has suspended two senior officials after they were filmed in an undercover investigation appearing to plot to get around electoral laws on foreign donations. In a blow to Nigel Farage hours before his conference speech, the party said it had launched an investigation into the actions of James Orr, the party’s head of policy, and Dan Jukes, a senior aide to Farage, after the broadcast by Channel 4 News. Jukes and Orr were filmed by…

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Wired reports: In a bid to tackle alleged voter fraud, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is preparing to award a contract worth up to $5 million to a company that will create a massive national database of voters. ICE first detailed what the contract would entail in a document published last week. “The purpose of this acquisition is for the handling and secure delivery of publicly available voter registration files and voter history files to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud…

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By Jen Fifield This story was originally published by ProPublica Top U.S. Postal Service officials tasked with issuing new regulations on mail voting expressed concerns in internal meetings about how the rules they were drafting could delay or block ballots from reaching large swaths of eligible voters for the upcoming midterms, but the rules moved forward anyway, ProPublica has learned. The revelations about the discussions, from someone familiar with the rulemaking process, come as a separate anonymous federal employee filed…

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