“Major NH voting law change nears finish line despite objections”

election administration, The Voting Wars

NHPR:

The largest change to New Hampshire election laws in recent history: That’s how some are describing a set of Republican-backed bills that would create new requirements for people looking to register to vote. The bills would also make New Hampshire among the strictest states in the country when it comes to new voter registration.

But despite the potential consequences, the top election official in the state — and Gov. Chris Sununu — have declined to say what they think of the bills.

State lawmakers and Sununu will make the final decision about whether these bills become law in the coming weeks. Here’s an overview of the potential changes coming to voter registration laws, and what the path ahead looks like….

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“Lawsuit could complicate absentee voting in Wisconsin”

absentee ballots, election administration

Wisconsin Watch:

A lawsuit that could complicate Wisconsin’s absentee voting process, create additional last-minute work for election officials and confuse voters is coming before a Marinette County judge Wednesday.

The lawsuit asks Marinette County Circuit Court Judge James Morrison to require voters who request their ballot through MyVote, Wisconsin’s online voting portal, to return a signed copy of their request with their actual absentee ballot for their vote to count. 

Additionally, the lawsuit asks Morrison to bar election officials from using a redesigned absentee ballot envelope that states the envelope is an original or copy of voters’ original absentee ballot request — something that the lawsuit alleges is not the case.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission urged the court to reject those requests in a Friday filing. But even if Morrison were to grant the requests, the commission asked him not to require any changes ahead of this year’s elections because they “would risk disenfranchising tens or even hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters in upcoming elections,” something the commission said would be “a stunningly undemocratic result.”

The requested changes to Wisconsin’s absentee ballot voting system would add work for clerks ahead of their June 27 deadline to begin mailing absentee ballots for August’s primary elections. Morrison may be sympathetic to the requests, considering that he granted a temporary injunction May 17 prohibiting the Wisconsin Elections Commission from requiring local clerks to use the redesigned absentee ballot envelope….

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Washington state law cannot bar felons from running for president

ballot access

This piece, by a columnist at the Seattle Times, is suddenly attracting terrific attention. It notes that Washington law allow someone “to challenge the right of a candidate to appear on the general election ballot after a primary” “Because the person whose right is being contested was, previous to the election, convicted of a felony by a court of competent jurisdiction, the conviction not having been reversed nor the person’s civil rights restored after the conviction.”

States routinely have such laws on the books, and they often do not clarify whether they apply only to state offices or to federal and state offices. But because states are categorically prohibited from adding qualifications to congressional offices after U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, it’s a reason to construe such statutes as applying to state offices. (Minnesota did so in 1950, for instance, in determining that its bar on ex-felons from holding office did not extend to congressional candidates.) But more generally, states cannot add qualifications to presidential candidates, either.

Continue reading Washington state law cannot bar felons from running for president →
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“D.C. ethics board recommends Rudy Giuliani be disbarred”

ethics investigations, fraudulent fraud squad

NBC News:

The D.C. Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility on Friday recommended that Rudy Giuliani be barred from practicing law in the nation’s capital.

In its report, the board cited Giuliani’s work in Pennsylvania following the 2020 presidential election in which he sought to have the state’s election results thrown out in favor of his former client Donald Trump.

“The Board agrees with the Hearing Committee that Disciplinary Counsel proved by clear and convincing evidence that Respondent violated Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct,” the report says. “With respect to sanction, we agree with the Hearing Committee that Respondent should be disbarred.”

This report follows one from last year in which a disciplinary board for the D.C. Bar also recommended disbarment for Giuliani. Now, the case heads to the D.C. Court of Appeals, which will decide whether Giuliani, who formerly served as the mayor of New York City, will be disbarred.

In a statement provided to NBC News, Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, blamed the findings in the report on “partisan Democrats” and said the decision would discourage attorneys from taking on Trump as a client.

“This recommendation comes as no surprise as partisan Democrats continue to destroy the credibility of the American justice system all in an effort to beat President Trump and to hold onto power,” Goodman said.

Here is the report, via Democracy Docket.

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“Marco Rubio spreads debunked election claims about 2020 ballots”

election subversion risk, fraudulent fraud squad

WaPo:

In the contest to join former president Donald Trump on the 2024 ticket as his running mate, aspirants have had to follow his path on questioning election integrity in the United States. Many refuse to say they would accept the election results if Trump doesn’t win. Some in contention have echoed Trump’s falsehoods, as Vivek Ramaswamy did when he declared in one of the GOP primary debates that “the 2020 election was indeed stolen by Big Tech.” (The theory, without evidence, is that more coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop would have changed the election results.)

In a recent television appearance, Rubio managed to achieve a trifecta.

He refused to say he would accept the results: “If it’s an unfair election, I think it’s going to be contested.”

He suggested that more coverage of the laptop would have affected the results: “What undermines elections is when NBC News and every major news outlet in America in 2020 censored the Biden laptop story, which turned out to be true, not Russian misinformation, unprecedented.”

And he made three specific claims about 2020 — one misleading, two debunked. Let’s examine them in the order he made them. A Rubio spokesperson declined to address his statements in detail. She forwarded the office’s news release on his appearance, which cast his comments as addressing the “legacy media’s one-sided questioning on election denying.”

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“Supreme Court sends dispute over Arkansas’ GOP-drawn congressional map back to lower court”

redistricting, Supreme Court

NBC News:

The Supreme Court on Monday told a lower court to take a fresh look at claims alleging that Republican-drawn congressional districts in Arkansas sought to minimize the influence of Black voters.

The justices threw out a May 2023 ruling by a panel of three federal judges that left in place the state’s congressional district map. All four districts are held by Republicans.

The Supreme Court said the lower court should review the case again in light of the justices’ ruling last month in a similar case from South Carolina in which Republican-drawn districts were left in place.

The lower court had concluded that the plaintiffs, Black voters and politicians, had failed to “create a plausible inference” that race was the predominant consideration when the new map was drawn.

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