In a victory for immigrants and advocacy groups, a federal judge has provisionally blocked enforcement of a Florida elections law that prohibited noncitizens from collecting signatures for citizen-led ballot initiatives.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker, in a 28-page ruling, temporarily struck down part of a controversial measure Republicans pushed to passage this year (HB 1205) that empowered state officials to enforce citizenship requirements on ballot initiative collectors.
Walker’s decision, a preliminary injunction order, stops Florida’s 20 State Attorneys from prosecuting Smart & Safe Florida, the organization behind last year’s failed Amendment 3 effort to legalize recreational cannabis, and its non-resident petition circulators.
Essentially, Smart & Safe’s hundreds of non-resident workers can resume collecting signatures for its current cannabis legalization ballot initiative without fear of criminal charges.
The Thursday ruling also blocked enforcement of the citizenship ban against Washington-based nonprofit Poder Latinx, the organization’s noncitizen members and two lawful permanent residents, Yivian Lopez Garcia and Humberto Orjuela Prieto….
“DHS to states: Follow our voting rules or lose out on election security money”
The Trump administration has indicated it may withhold tens of millions of dollars in election security funding if states don’t comply with its voting policy goals.
The money comes from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) grant program, and voting officials say new requirements from the administration will make the money inaccessible for most of the country.
NPR is the first news outlet to report on the changes.
About $28 million — or 3% of the overall Homeland Security Grant Program — is devoted to election security and now at risk, though some officials and experts worry that the new requirements could also endanger hundreds of millions of dollars in other grants for law enforcement.
Voting officials say the amount of money at risk won’t make or break the country’s election security. But the potential withholding of funds over policy differences — combined with other recent election security cuts — has many wondering whether the Trump administration is prioritizing election security the way it claims it is.
“Despite the rhetoric, there’s been [a] serious cutback to election security support that is being offered to the states,” said Larry Norden, an elections expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, which is broadly critical of President Trump’s policies. “And this is going to be one more cut for a lot of states because most states are not going to allow the president to decide [how their elections work].”…
“Trump seeks to ban the mail voting system that Republicans built in Arizona to boost turnout”
The vast majority of Arizonans who voted for President Donald Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024 cast their ballot by mail — a system ushered into existence and expanded by Republican lawmakers in the Grand Canyon State. Trump says he wants to ban it nationwide.
Despite calls to ban it from far-right lawmakers, political candidates and their supporters, casting a ballot by mail is the most popular way to vote in Arizona — and has been for decades. In the 2024 presidential election, around 75% of voters in the state cast their ballot by mail, even after Trump urged them to head to the polls instead. The number of Trump voters in Arizona who mailed their ballots outstripped those who showed up to the polls on Election Day 2024 by more than 4.5 times, according to data from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office.
On Monday, Trump posted on his social media site Truth Social that he planned to rid the country of voting by mail and the machines that count ballots before the 2026 midterms. Later that day, he promised to issue an executive order banning no-excuse mail-in ballots, which he called “corrupt.”
“And it’s time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrats want it,” Trump said. “It’s the only way they can get elected.”…
In 1991, it was Republicans who brought no-excuse vote by mail to Arizona, in part as a way to increase turnout when voter apathy was at an all-time high. And the move worked: turnout in the 1988 presidential election in Arizona was 67%, but in jumped to 77% in 1992.
Republican Gov. Fife Symington signed the bill into law in July 1991 that allowed voters to request an early ballot without having to provide an excuse. The Republican-controlled Arizona House of Representatives approved the bill 53-0 and the Senate, which had a rare Democratic majority, voted for it 21-9, with opposition from conservative Republicans.
Then-Republican National Committeeman Mike Hellon told the Pima County Rotary Club that their vote-by-mail outreach in the 1992 presidential election was so bad that he considered it “criminal negligence,” according to a Nov. 15, 1992 article in the Arizona Daily Star.
He said he particularly resented that Democrats “cleaned our clock” because “it’s our program.”
The state’s Republican-controlled legislature continued to vote to expand no-excuse vote by mail over the next two decades, including with the creation of the active early voting list in 2007.
The push to eliminate voting by mail is new, and It is only in the past 10 years that far-right Republicans began a true campaign to rid the state of no-excuse voting by mail. And while heading to the polls to cast a ballot in person has become more popular for Republicans during the past two election cycles, the effort to nix early voting by mail has failed to garner mainstream support due to its popularity among Democrat, Republican and independent voters.
The most extreme Republicans in the Arizona legislature have tried to pass laws banning no-excuse mail voting since 2020, after Trump falsely claimed that it was rife with fraud and blamed it for his loss that year to Joe Biden. So far those efforts, including a lawsuit from Arizona’s most infamous election deniers Kari Lake and Mark Finchem, and bills to change voting laws proposed by members of the far-right Arizona Freedom Caucus, have failed.
Trump-backed candidates who lost their elections for statewide office in 2022 were quick to praise Trump’s demonization of voting-by-mail on Monday.
“This is the best news I’ve heard in years!” Lake, who lost her bid for governor in 2022 and was defeated in the U.S. Senate contest in 2024, posted on the social media site X, formerly Twitter. “The people demand honest elections.”
Lake spent the two years following her narrow 2022 loss to Katie Hobbs attempting to convince Arizona courts to overturn the results.
“President Trump is going to fix our broken election system and I will be there to help all the way,” U.S. Rep. Abe Hamadeh posted on X. Hamadeh lost the race for Arizona Attorney General in 2022 to Democrat Kris Mayes by fewer than 400 votes. He also attempted to overturn the results with a legal challenge.
Bryan Blehm, a Scottsdale divorce attorney who represented Lake in her court challenges, and Shelby Busch, an election conspiracy theorist who testified during them, heaped praise on Trump for his demonization of no-excuse voting by mail during a livestream on X Monday.
“We’ve been talking for years about the danger of mail-in ballots,” said Busch, the first vice chairman of the Maricopa County Republican Committee.
Blehm, who was suspended from practicing law for two months last year for lying to the Arizona Supreme Court on Lake’s behalf, went on to claim — without evidence — that COVID-19 was intentionally released prior to an election year to force more voting by mail. ….
“Advocates File Immediate Legal Challenge to Texas Gerrymander “
Hours after Texas lawmakers approved a new gerrymandered congressional map Saturday morning, Texans asked a court to block it.
The plaintiffs*, a group of Black and Latino Texans, filed an amended complaint in an ongoing challenge to the electoral districts Texas drew in 2021. The amended complaint alleges that the new map violates Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act and the 14th Amendment by diluting the voting power of Black and Latino communities.
It also argues that the redistricting violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause “because it unnecessarily and unjustifiably considers racial and partisan demographics as part of a voluntary, mid-cycle redistricting,” and because it is “malapportioned” in violation of the principle of one person, one vote.In addition, the plaintiffs argue that the new redistricting “intentionally destroy[ed] majority-minority districts and replac[ed] them with majority-Anglo districts.” This was done, the plaintiffs charge, “explicitly because of the racial composition of those districts.”
Lawyers’ Committee statement:
Robert Weiner, the voting rights project director at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which represents the Texas NAACP in the ongoing lawsuit against Texas for racial gerrymandering, issued the following statement regarding the new redistricting law:
“This map is illegal. The architects of this racially discriminatory plan clearly targeted minority voters. The legislators bulldozed important majority minority districts. It eliminates opportunities of Black and Brown people to elect their preferred candidates in multiple Congressional districts.
“We are still in the midst of an ongoing lawsuit against the state of Texas because the existing maps dilute the votes of people of color. This new map increases discrimination. The legislators supercharged their efforts to undercut the voting strength of minority voters after the Department of Justice–misstating the law and abusing its power–told Texas to do that. This plan cannot stand.”
“As part of the ongoing case that we and others are challenging the 2021 maps, the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas in El Paso will hold a hearing on Wednesday, August 27th, to consider the schedule for litigation concerning Texas’s redistricting efforts.
“Doggett won’t seek reelection to Congress if new district is upheld by courts, paving way for Casar”
“These states could redistrict before the 2026 midterms”
WaPo goes down the list.
“Red Envelopes With Cash Are Changing Hands at Adams Campaign Rallies”
NYT:
In July, New York Times reporters witnessed other Adams supporters handing out red envelopes with cash at three separate campaign events: one in Flushing, Queens; another in Manhattan’s Chinatown; and a third in Sunset Park in Brooklyn. At… Continue reading
“California voters will decide redistricting in November, escalating battle with Trump and Texas”
L.A. Times:
Ratcheting up the pressure in the escalating national fight over control of Congress, the California Legislature on Thursday approved a November special election to ask voters to redraw the state’s electoral lines to favor Democrats and thwart… Continue reading
Federal Government Files Supreme Court Brief in NRSC Case Arguing That an Aspect of Federal Campaign Finance Law Violates the First Amendment
You can find the government’s brief on the merits here. You can find the brief of the Republican Party making similar arguments here. Because the government has taken the unusual position in attacking the constitutionality of a law… Continue reading
“Trump says Missouri will revise congressional districts to favor Republicans”
Missouri Independent:
Missouri “is IN” for redrawing the state’s congressional districts in a special legislative session, President Donald Trump proclaimed Thursday on his social media platform.
With Texas moving quickly toward a mid-decade revision of its congressional map… Continue reading
Bob Bauer Sounds the Alarm: “Donald Trump’s Plan for ‘Honest’ Mid-Term Elections”
Bob Bauer writes, very much in line with what I wrote in the NYT yesterday:
On August 18, Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that he would sign another executive order, following one issued in March, to “help… Continue reading
“Musk must face lawsuit brought by voters he convinced to sign petition in $1 million-a-day election giveaway, judge says”
The Independent:
A judge in Texas denied, on Wednesday, Elon Musk’s request to dismiss a class action lawsuit against him and his political action committee brought by a group of voters who participated in his $1-million-a-day “giveaway” leading… Continue reading
“Appeals court throws out massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump”
AP:
An appeals court has thrown out the massive civil fraud penalty against President Donald Trump, ruling Thursday in New York state’s lawsuit accusing him of exaggerating his wealth.
The decision came seven months after the Republican returned to… Continue reading
“Adams Adviser Suspended From Campaign After Giving Cash to Reporter”
NYT:
A close adviser to Mayor Eric Adams was suspended from his re-election campaign on Wednesday after giving a journalist cash tucked inside a potato chip bag.
The adviser, Winnie Greco, who was the mayor’s former director of Asian… Continue reading