You can find the careful and well reasoned district court opinion at this link. From the introduction:

The first question presented in these consolidated cases is whether the President, acting unilaterally, may direct changes to federal election procedures. Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes.

In Section 2(a) of Executive Order No. 14,248, the President directed the Election Assistance Commission to “take appropriate action” to alter the national mail voter registration form to require documentary proof of United States citizenship. The several Plaintiffs in these consolidated cases have moved for partial summary judgment, arguing that Section 2(a) of Executive Order No. 14,248 cannot lawfully be implemented because our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States—not the President—with the power to regulate federal elections.

Upon consideration of the parties’ submissions, the relevant legal authority, and the entire record, this Court agrees. Because there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and Plaintiffs are entitled to judgment in their favor on their constitutional separation-of-powers claims regarding Section 2(a) as a matter of law, the Court shall enter partial summary judgment in Plaintiffs’ favor and deny both the Federal Defendants’ and Defendant-Intervenor’s cross-motions for summary judgment as to those claims. The Court shall permanently enjoin the proper Federal Defendants from implementing Section 2(a) of the President’s Executive Order. Because there is no just reason for delaying the ultimate resolution of Plaintiffs’ constitutional separation-of-powers claims regarding Section 2(a), the Court shall enter a final, appealable judgment on those claims. Finally, because Plaintiffs have not alleged that there is yet a final agency action implementing Section 2(a), the Court shall dismiss without prejudice the Democratic Party Plaintiffs’ Administrative Procedure Act claims regarding that provision…

Yesterday, Robert Boatright and Catherine Tolbert’s essay argued that we should hold primary elections on a single, national primary day:

When America adopted primary elections, primaries were hailed as a way to give the public a say in choosing our leaders. Today, fewer than twenty percent of Americans vote in primaries. Primary voters are unrepresentative of the population, registered voters, and even the other members of their parties. Turnout of younger people is extremely low. Turnout fluctuates wildly, depending on whether there is competition in high-profile races. To improve primaries, we must increase the participation, representativeness, and consistency of primary voters. The best way to do this is to hold all congressional and state primaries (though not necessarily presidential primaries) on the same day: a National Primary Day.

Primaries for state and federal office are spread across eighteen dates from March to September.  If all primaries were held on the same day, people would know when to vote. A single-day primary would also attract more national media coverage.  People would know there is a primary even if they knew little about their local candidates. A national primary would also simplify mobilization efforts by parties or interest groups. An organization seeking to increase turnout by a particular demographic group or to highlight the salience of an issue could engage in a nationwide campaign or publicize lists of endorsed candidates. These effects would be felt the most among lower propensity voters, who tend to be younger, less wealthy, and less ideologically extreme than today’s primary voters. The primary electorate would look more like the American population.

There are many secondary effects from having a single-day primary as well. A single-day primary would limit the power of organized interests. The sequential nature of contemporary, low-turnout primaries gives undue power to groups that have sought to encourage extreme candidates and to selectively “primary” incumbents. An increase in turnout would make it more likely that primary victories would be a consequence of voter mobilization, not voter inattention. When primaries do yield unexpected results, we would understand these outcomes in the context of all of the year’s primaries, not as harbingers of what might take place in primaries later in the year.

AJC:

For much of the last decade, it was Republicans who questioned the integrity of Georgia’s elections. Now a growing share of Democrats are voicing doubts of their own.

In the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, 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.

That’s more than double the share from October 2024, when just 16% of Democrats said they lacked faith in the election system.

Meanwhile, 80% of likely GOP primary voters say they have faith in the integrity of next year’s vote, and only 6% say they’re not confident at all. It’s almost the inverse of where the parties stood last year, when as many as two-thirds of GOP voters expressed doubts about Georgia’s elections.

Washington State Standard:

Facebook’s parent company is asking Washington’s high court to overturn what the state’s attorney general has called the largest campaign finance penalty in the nation’s history.

Meta argues the Washington campaign finance law used to justify the $35 million fine violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The company also argues that the punishment, for not providing required records for digital campaign advertisements hosted on its platform, is excessive and misguided. 

The state attorney general’s office, which sued Meta in 2020, says provisions of the law are necessary to inform voters about who is spending money to influence Washington elections. Gov. Bob Ferguson was leading the attorney general’s office when the case was filed. 

“This purpose is even more urgent today, given the targeted and ephemeral nature of digital media, yet Meta has repeatedly and intentionally violated our law,” said deputy solicitor general Cristina Sepe, as the state and Meta argued their cases before state Supreme Court justices Tuesday.

Meta was represented in court by Rob McKenna, the former two-term Republican state attorney general and 2012 gubernatorial candidate.

On Monday, we ran Brad Smith’s skeptical essay about election reforms, titled Too Much to Ask: Voting Reforms Can Only Do So Much, which I blogged about on Monday. Yesterday, Josh Sellers published an essay with a more optimistic take, on how political realignments might open the door for some reforms. Today, we publish Ben Ginsberg on The Need to Re-Imagine the American Election System of the Future.

Here’s an excerpt from Josh’s essay:

In our present environment, however, the political and participatory implications of many electoral rules are less apparent. What was once conventional wisdom – that increasing voter registration rates and reducing administrative burdens on voting would benefit the Democratic Party – is now in question. As the electorate further divides along socioeconomic and educational lines, non- and infrequent voters (both of whom tend to be poorer and less educated) are, according to some studies, slightly more likely to favor the Republican Party. Moreover, the expanding Latino vote is increasingly divided between the two major political parties. Whatever challenges these developments pose for political strategists, they present an opportunity for election reformers and fair-minded elected officials.

The reason is simple. In this deeply contested political era in which many elections are decided by very small margins, both parties have an incentive to simplify the electoral process and bring more voters into the fold. And given the now unpredictable consequences of various election administration policies, such simplification can occur behind a veil of ignorance, without knowingly sacrificing an electoral advantage. The upshot would be more efficient and inclusive election administration for all…

Along similar lines, the moment is ripe to finally reach some agreement on voter identification laws. The utility and impact of such laws have long been points of profound political disagreement. At present, though, significant evidence suggests that the partisan impact of such laws is negligible. And to the extent that the acquisition of a qualifying identification is burdensome, such burdens disproportionately fall on lower-income, less-educated voters who, as noted above, increasingly favor the Republican Party. These dynamics present a rare opening for a détente.

From Ben Ginsberg’s essay today:

It’s time to be truthful about the current state of American elections, a venerable institution foundational to our form of government, currently the subject of an unprecedented onslaught against its accuracy.

The reality is that the system is reliable at present, but it is creaky. It needs innovation to keep up with technology. More than anything else, it needs reimagining and a vision for the future rather than the incremental refinements it now receives….

The vision for the election system of the 2040s can take many different forms. In addition to exploring the benefits of in-state consistency, central topics for re-imagination would include:

• The design of future voting systems and how and where voters should cast their ballots, with an examination of whether internet voting can be made sufficiently secure for states to entertain its use.
• How to ensure a steady funding stream to incorporate technological improvements that can be used in the casting, counting and certification of votes.
•  Research and development projects that will design modern vote casting and tabulation equipment and methods of best maintaining the voter rolls. Current equipment has not kept up with technology, in part because of the localized administration system and in part because of insufficient and episodic funding.
•  The United States is a mobile society and voter rolls are not systematically and uniformly kept accurate. Coordination between the 50 states in checking their rolls to prevent dual voting registrations and voting is needed.
• The redesign of polling place locations and layouts to help with efficiency and uniformity.
• As cyber threats grow and artificial intelligence becomes integrated into all facets of life, the election system needs better cyber protections.

Today’s elections are reliable but the onslaught against them should provide a catalyst for imagining what they should look like in the future.

This morning Rick linked to David Graham’s story for the December issue of The Atlantic, entitled Donald Trump’s Plan to Subvert the Midterms Is Already Under Way.

As someone who wrote a law review article in advance of the 2020 presidential election anticipating how Trump would endeavor to challenge the outcome if he was defeated as a result of “blue shift” ballots counted after Election Night, I’m all in favor of attempting to prognosticate what comparable efforts to undermine valid election results might occur in connection with next year’s midterms.

One detail in Graham’s story, however, is mistaken–or at least misleading. The article opens with a scenario in which “[c]ontrol” of the House of Representatives “seems like it will come down to two districts in Maricopa County, Arizona.” After contemplating what might happen in the state to prevent Democrats from winning those two districts, Graham writes: “the state names the two Democrats as winners” but “House Republicans reject Arizona’s certification and instead seat the GOP candidates.” Graham sums up this scenario by saying that “Trump’s allies keep the House” as a consequence of this “profoundly illegitimate” maneuver. (Much later in this lengthy article, Graham repeats in more general terms the same fear: “With Trump blowing wind into flimsy fraud allegations, the House GOP caucus could try to use them to preserve a narrow majority.”)

The problem with Graham’s scenario is that the House is not a continuing body. Thus, if the two Arizona districts will determine control of the House, then Republicans will not (yet) be the majority party in a position to seat Republican claimants instead of Democrats. The fact that Republicans were in the majority in the House during the previous two-year Congress is irrelevant. On January 3, 2027, the House will have to organize itself by first having the Members-elect vote in a new Speaker. If there is contestation over enough seats to determine which party has a majority of Members-elect for the purpose of holding the vote on who is the new Speaker, that contestation can stymie and delay the Speakership vote and prevent the organization of the House.

It’s a situation very much to worry about, but not in the way Graham describes. It wouldn’t be the Republicans giving themselves the majority by seating two more Republican members instead of the two Democrats who were certified by the state to have won the election. It would be much messier and more complicated than that. (As a general rule, the Clerk of the House is supposed to identify as a Member-elect a candidate who presents a prima facie valid certificate of election from the state, history shows that it is not always that simple.)

If one wants an inkling of what might happen if control of the House is at stake in the context of disputes over enough seats to make a difference in which party has a majority of votes to win the Speakership election, I encourage reading about two episodes described in Ballot Battles: The History of Disputed Elections in the United States (rev. ed. 2024). The first is the so-called “Broad Seal War” over New Jersey’s House seats in 1838, which starts on page 92. The second is the contestation over the 1862 midterms during the Civil War, starting on page 110.

CNN:

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday said he has spoken with Donald Trump about the possibility of the president seeking a third-term but that he sees no path for it as any change to the US Constitution would be well after Trump has left office.

“Well, there’s the 22nd Amendment,” Johnson, who is a constitutional lawyer, said in response to a question about his comfort-level with the president floating a 2028 bid.

“It’s been a great run. But I think the president knows, and he and I have talked about, the constrictions of the Constitution, as much as so many of the American people lament that,” he said.

The president, he said, is trolling members of the other party when he talks publicly about the topic.

“The Trump 2028 cap is one of the most popular that’s ever been produced. And he has a good time with that, trolling the Democrats, whose hair is on fire about the very prospect,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill.

The Republican leader’s acknowledgment that he and Trump have discussed issues surrounding a third-term adds credence to warnings from the president’s opponents that he is seriously flirting with upending the Constitution. But Johnson’s quickly throwing cold water on the suggestion underscores how little support Trump would have if he actually tried to move forward with it….

This trolling point is one I’ve raised with reporters. It also may delay people talking about Trump as a lame duck.

AP reports.

Portsmouth Daily Times:

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced on Tuesday that his office has referred 1,200 criminal cases to the United States Department of Justice for consideration of federal prosecution.

“Ohio has earned its reputation as the Gold Standard, and our Election Integrity Unit continues to prove why,” said Secretary LaRose. “We work tirelessly to ensure that every eligible voter’s voice is heard, and anyone who tries to cheat the system will face serious consequences.”

Secretary LaRose sent a letter and evidentiary materials related to 1,084 noncitizen individuals who appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio. This includes 167 noncitizens who appear to have also cast a ballot in a federal election, all of which occurred in the most recent four federal election cycles of 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024. Additionally, Secretary LaRose is referring for consideration evidence of the following:

Two individuals who appear to have registered at a residence where they were not entitled to register

99 individuals who appear to have voted in two states in the same federal election

16 individuals who appear to have voted twice in Ohio in the same federal election

14 individuals who appear to have voted in a federal election after the date of their death

Four individuals who appear to have engaged in ballot harvesting

who had a lot to cover during his two weeks as primary ELB blogger. I so appreciate Spencer’s excellent work!

Today is my final day managing the Election Law Blog after two weeks at the helm. It’s been a privilege to highlight developments and perspectives during such an important period for our democracy.  I want to extend my sincere thanks to Rick for the opportunity to help curate this vital forum, and I’m deeply grateful to the Election Law Blog community for your engagement, tips, and insights. I look forward to continuing to serve as a contributor and managing the blog in the future.

POLITICO:

TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Florida is considering a move that would give people a closer look at what’s being taught in its public universities — another potential flash point as conservative-led states scrutinize higher education.

University leaders in Florida want schools to post what textbooks, instructional materials and readings are required for most courses, similar to a policy recently adopted by Georgia colleges.

Supporters say the change promotes openness and accountability, helping students see what they’re signing up for and encouraging professors to stay on topic. But some faculty fear the changes could invite political pressure and harassment at a time when higher education is under an intense ideological spotlight, particularly around lessons touching on gender, race and diversity.

The proposal is the latest step in Florida’s broader effort — led by Gov. Ron DeSantis and the state’s GOP supermajority — to reshape higher education. A far-reaching 2024 law forced a review of hundreds of general education courses across the state’s 12 universities and banned spending tied to diversity, equity and inclusion.

NYT: 

President Trump doubled down on Saturday in his feud with Canada over a television ad that used audio of former President Ronald Reagan denouncing tariffs, saying he would punish the country with an additional 10 percent tariff on its goods.

Mr. Trump had already suspended monthslong trade talks with Canada, the United States’ second-largest trading partner, on Thursday night because of the ad, which had been paid for by Ontario. Though the ad faithfully reproduced Mr. Reagan’s words, just in a different order, Mr. Trump has insisted it was “fraudulent” after the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute said it had made “selective” use of the five-minute original address.

Newsmeter:

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has issued a fresh advisory setting out stringent norms for the disclosure and responsible use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and synthetic content in political campaigning ahead of the Jubilee Hills Assembly Constituency bye-election.

The advisory aims to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process and curb the spread of misleading or manipulated digital material.