Kentuckians will be voting this fall on two constitutional amendments. This is the view approaching the Sugar Maple Square polling site in Bowling Green, May 21, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

One of the two constitutional amendments Kentucky voters will decide this November would prohibit people who are not citizens of the United States from voting in Kentucky elections — something that already does not happen.

The amendment’s sponsor, state Sen. Jason Howell, R-Murray, called it a “proactive” measure to protect election integrity. Others say the amendment could discourage immigrants who are citizens from exercising their right to vote and that Republicans are using it to fan anti-immigrant fears to turn out their base.

If approved, Amendment 1 would bar noncitizens from voting in Kentucky elections. Election officials, including Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams, told lawmakers this summer that the state already has safeguards in place to keep that from happening.?

During the 2024 legislative session, Howell’s bill was one of two proposing to amend the state constitution to specifically prevent noncitizens from voting in Kentucky elections. Rep. Michael Meredith, R-Oakland, introduced the other bill, which gained support in the House.?

Similar measures are on the ballot this fall in other states, including Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin. In Congress, House Republicans have sought to push a provision to bar noncitizens from voting in federal elections, which is already unlawful.?

Former President Donald Trump, the GOP nominee for president, has repeatedly falsely claimed that noncitizens voting are costing Republicans elections, a claim refuted by former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican, among many others.?

Noncitizens voting in elections across the country is rare. Some state officials in Texas, Ohio, Alabama and Georgia have flagged some noncitizens who have registered to vote or did vote in an election. Some local governments in California, Maryland, Vermont and the District of Columbia allow noncitizens to vote in their elections, such as for school board or city council.?

In an interview with the Lantern, Howell said if a local government in Kentucky allowed noncitizens to vote in a local election, “the administrative complexities associated with that, with our county clerks and secretary of state’s office, would be significant.”

“The reality of the situation — if a governmental entity decided to do this anywhere in the Commonwealth of Kentucky, a huge majority of our citizens would lose their minds over it, and I think rightly so,” the senator said.?

Anti-immigrant sentiments

Some have criticized measures like Kentucky’s Amendment 1 as a ploy to churn anti-immigrant sentiments among GOP base voters.?

Corey Shapiro, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, called it “an attempt to divide and fearmonger more than anything else” as federal law already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections.?

Shapiro said the amendment will bring “additional attention to anybody who people think might not be a citizen” and could increase voter suppression among immigrants who have gained citizenship.?

“We’re seeing attacks on immigrants all across the country, and this is yet another attack, and it’s unfortunate because people who are registered to vote in Kentucky have probably one of the fewest opportunities to vote compared to other states, and instead of working to actually improve our election laws, make it easier for people to access the ballot, we are spending time and money talking about … made-up problems and casting doubt on the legitimacy of our elections,” Shapiro said.?

Kentucky has fewer days of early voting than most states. Voters also have fewer hours to get to the polls on Election Day in Kentucky, where polls are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., than in most states.?

Shapiro said giving Kentucky voters “more access to the ballot and more ability to vote … would be a much better use of our politics.”?

However, Howell said that he did not think the amendment could spur anti-immigrant sentiments among Kentuckians, but non-citizens voting in elections could.?

“Sometimes, it’s very controversial when a particular immigrant community expands within a community,” Howell said. “And I can see anti-immigrant sentiment being stirred up against that particular immigrant community if they were given the opportunity to vote for their mayor, or their school board where their children are educated, or something like that. To me, that has a much greater risk of anti-immigrant backlash than this constitutional amendment ever could.”?

The campaign for Amendment 1 has had a much lower profile than Amendment 2, which would give the General Assembly the ability to fund nonpublic schools if passed. Nine issue committees have registered with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance to spend dollars to support or oppose Amendment 2, but none have filed to campaign on Amendment 1.?

House Democratic Caucus Chair Cherlynn Stevenson of Lexington said during a Kentucky Democratic Party press conference a couple of weeks ago that she does “absolutely believe that (Amendment 1) is probably on the ballot to help drive turnout” for the nonpublic schools amendment as voters who will support Amendment 1 will be encouraged to vote for Amendment 2.?

“It is a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist because noncitizens can already not vote,” Stevenson said.?

Howell said the amendments are “pretty mutually exclusive” as they deal with separate issues. He said he has not heard people talk about the amendments together.

An election observer monitors two poll workers processing absentee ballots in the Milwaukee Election Commission warehouse on Aug. 13. Discrepancies in the count could be used by county canvassing boards in swing states as a reason not to certify elections. (Photo by Matt Vasilogambros/Stateline)

GRAYLING, Mich. — Clairene Jorella was furious.

In the northern stretches of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, the Crawford County Board of Canvassers had just opened its meeting to certify the August primary when Jorella, 83 years old and one of two Democrats on the panel, laid into her Republican counterparts.

Glaring, she said she was gobsmacked by the partisan opinions they’d recently aired publicly.

“We are an impartial board,” she told them a day after the primary election, sitting at a conference room table in the back of the county clerk’s office. “We are expected to be impartial. We are not expected to bring our political beliefs into this board.”

The two Republicans, Brett Krouse and Bryce Metcalfe, had two weeks earlier written a letter to the editor of the local newspaper, endorsing a candidate for township clerk because of “her commitment to election integrity.”

Citing their positions on the Board of Canvassers, the letter went on to claim that because of new state election laws, including one that allows for early voting, “All of the ingredients required for voter fraud were present.”

Jorella thought the letter was inappropriate. And she had reason to worry, having seen in recent years Republican members of county boards in Michigan and in other states refuse to certify elections when their preferred candidate lost. It was a preview of the battles communities nationwide might face in November’s presidential election.

Metcalfe, 48, said he didn’t do anything wrong.

“I don’t serve the Democrat Party in any way, shape or form,” he said. “I serve the Republican Party.”

“Bryce, you serve the people,” said Brian Chace, 77, the board’s other Democratic member.

Metcalfe raised his voice. “I will not be silenced.”

The board members argued for 20 minutes, then broke into two bipartisan teams to begin their task at hand. In a process known as canvassing, they looked through documents precinct by precinct, making sure that the total votes shown on a polling place’s ballot tabulator matched the number of ballots issued.

While members of the board eventually certified the election after meeting a few times over the following week, the kerfuffle illustrates the tension consuming communities around the country over one of the crucial final steps in elections.

Stateline crisscrossed Michigan and Wisconsin — two states critical in the race for the presidency — to interview dozens of voters, local election officials and activists to understand how the voting, tabulation and certification processes could be disrupted in November.

There is broad concern that, despite checks and balances built into the voting system, Republican members of state and county boards tasked with certifying elections will be driven by conspiracy theories and refuse to fulfill their roles if former President Donald Trump loses again.

Last month, the Georgia State Election Board passed new rules that would allow county canvassing boards to conduct their own investigations before certifying election results. State and national Democrats have sued the state board over the rules.

The fear that these efforts could sow chaos and delay results is not unfounded: Over the past four years, county officials in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania have refused to certify certain elections. After immense pressure, county officials either changed their minds, or courts or state officials had to step in.

“People are now trying to interfere with this otherwise pretty boring process, based on the false idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and that widespread voter fraud continues to pervade our election system,” said Lauren Miller Karalunas, a counsel for the Brennan Center, a voting rights group housed at the New York University School of Law.

“This is a mandatory process with no room for these certifying officials to go behind the results to investigate anything,” she added.

‘We’re working for the people’

Michael Siegrist, the Democratic clerk for Canton Township, Michigan, has zero patience for election deniers.

On the Saturday before the August primary, he stood before 11 soon-to-be poll workers at a training session, repeatedly emphasizing one point: Run a good, clean, legal election.

“All of the rules we have in place are either to protect the integrity of the election or to protect the voters,” Siegrist said. The trainees nodded along.

Down the hall, two dozen election inspectors and township officials opened and processed absentee ballots.

“We’re working for the people,” Siegrist continued. “We’re not working for ourselves. We’re not working for our philosophies. And we’re not working for our political parties.”

Siegrist, who serves a suburban Detroit community of nearly 99,000 people within Wayne County, has seen it before.

Two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers initially refused to certify more than 800,000 votes cast during the 2020 presidential election; Siegrist was one of many people who joined a Zoom call the county board set up for public comments two weeks after the election and berated them.

“We are basically doing what no foreign country has ever been able to do, which is successfully undermine our election system,” he told them.

Years later, the Detroit News uncovered audio of Trump pressuring those GOP members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to certify the 2020 election, promising them legal representation. Siegrist is still concerned about the certification process and worries that board members will be compromised by partisanship and refuse to certify the election in November.

In 2021, Robert Boyd, at the time the newest Republican on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers and one of the people who will be tasked with certifying November’s election, told the Detroit Free Press that if he were in his position in 2020 he would not have certified the election.

Certifying elections had been a mostly routine formality for more than a century across the country. The results that come out after the polls close on election night are unofficial and need to be certified. While laws vary slightly by state, bipartisan, citizen-led panels are typically tasked with certifying elections at both the county and state levels.

Usually known as boards of canvassers, the panel’s job is to compare the number of ballots cast according to poll books with the number of ballots fed through a tabulator. Sometimes, those numbers don’t match.

Those mismatches are to be expected and are almost always handled swiftly. But in 2020, they formed one of the bases for the lie — spread widely by Trump and his supporters — that the election was stolen in favor of Democrat Joe Biden.

If the numbers are off in a precinct — usually by one or two votes — a poll worker might provide an explanation to the canvassing board. A voter may have been impatient with a long line and left the precinct with a ballot in hand, for example, or two ballots may have been stuck together. Sometimes, board members ask poll workers or municipal clerks to come in and explain a discrepancy.

It’s a tedious process akin to watching paint dry, said Christina Schlitt, president of the League of Women Voters of Grand Traverse Area, which sends volunteers throughout Michigan to make sure canvassing board members follow the rules.

“They’re not to look for any nefarious actions, although some inexperienced canvassers, particularly in one party, seem to look for problems,” she said, referring to the GOP.

The proper way to contest the election results is not through the certification process, she said. Aggrieved candidates can always call for a recount or go to the courts.

Local officials prepare

Barb Byrum, the Democratic clerk for Ingham County, Michigan, recently had to use some of her political capital to keep an election denier off the certifying panel for the county of nearly 285,000 people.

Republican members of the county’s Board of Commissioners listened to and agreed with Byrum, an outspoken former state representative who is not afraid to negotiate.

“I needed someone else,” she said, praising cooperative local leaders. “Many other county clerks did not have that luxury, so they do have conspiracy pushers and believers on their board of canvassers.”

Byrum, whose county includes the state capital of Lansing, works from the county courthouse in Mason, a rural city of about 8,200 people. “Hometown, U.S.A.” signs line its streets. Downtown, LGBTQ+ flags hang from the windows of Byrum’s first-floor office, where passersby can see them through the beech trees.

After Trump lost Michigan in 2020, his supporters sued to have Ingham County’s and two other counties’ 1.2 million votes excluded from the state’s 5.5 million vote count, saying there had been “issues and irregularities.” At the time, Byrum called the lawsuit “ludicrous” and full of conspiracy theories. Biden won the state by 154,000 votes.

The desire to keep election troublemakers off county canvassing boards is bipartisan.

Justin Roebuck, the clerk for Ottawa County, Michigan, and a Republican, said he has been dispelling election lies about alleged widespread fraud in elections since 2016. So, he feels more prepared than ever to deal with potential disruptions this fall.

“It’s not something that I worry about; it’s something that I prepare for,” said Roebuck, who serves a county of about 301,000 people who live near Lake Michigan’s coastline.

“We’re asking our community to trust us,” he added. “I want to trust them too. I want to be able to dialogue with people, even in heated situations.”

During the 2022 midterm elections, a group of around 15 voters went to the Board of Canvassers meeting and said there must be fraud because the Republican gubernatorial candidate had received fewer voters than the county commissioner in a precinct. They accosted Roebuck in the hallway, he recalled.

Instead of getting security involved, he invited them into a nearby conference room.

“We have to be transparent and talk through the challenges,” he said.

A preview of November

One of the leading voices questioning the integrity of Wisconsin’s elections is named Jefferson Davis.

On the morning of Wisconsin’s Aug. 13 primary, Davis quarterbacked the Republican observers at the Milwaukee Election Commission’s warehouse south of downtown. The only person wearing a suit in a sea of casually dressed election workers, Davis weaved throughout the crowded facility with familiarity.

“I don’t care if you beat me in an election, as long as you don’t cheat or steal or compromise or whatever,” he told Stateline, before outlining eight ways he claimed voter fraud is occuring in Wisconsin, including inflated voter lists, noncitizens voting and harvesting ballots from people in long-term care facilities.

Davis, the spokesperson for a group called the Ad-hoc Committee for the Wisconsin Full Forensic Physical and Cyber Audit, placed his people in front of the yellow caution tape that sectioned off election workers who were processing 23,000 absentee ballots. There were 15 Republican observers and two Democrats and a handful of unaffiliated observers.

Bipartisan pairs of Democratic, Republican or unaffiliated poll workers sorted and counted absentee ballots, checking to see whether the voter had provided their required signature and address on the envelope. The workers wore paper wristbands colored blue, red or purple to mark their party affiliation. Facing hours of work, some brought pillows for their chairs.

Davis’ observers had clipboards and forms, developed by the Republican National Committee, noting the number of security cameras, tables, election workers by political affiliation, building access points and tabulating machines. They also noted when and why each ballot was rejected.

“We care about our Constitution, we care about our freedom, our liberty, our independence, because we cannot have an election stolen again,” Davis said, raising his voice over the whirr of four high-speed letter openers.

Before the ballot-counting process began, Brenda Wood, a member of the Board of Absentee Canvassers in Milwaukee, walked observers through the rules: They had to stay three feet away from election workers and could only ask them a voter’s name and address and why an absentee ballot was rejected.

“If they provide only ‘Milwaukee, Wisconsin,’ and not their street address, then it will be rejected,” Wood said.

“Oh good,” Davis quickly responded.

After her spiel, Davis rapidly but politely peppered her with more than 20 questions that he called “quickies,” grilling her on the day’s process. He wanted to make sure there wasn’t any “hanky-panky” going on. Other observers asked one or two questions.

Throughout the day, election workers processed ballots without significant issues. Occasionally, one would raise a cardboard paddle to ask staff a question about procedure or whether they should reject a ballot. At one point, an election worker, overwhelmed by observers asking her questions, put her forehead on the table and asked them to give her space.

“Can we put a note saying the observer wanted this ballot rejected?” asked one GOP observer, wanting to have her concern in writing on the ward’s official documents.

“You can, but we’re not going to reject it,” a commission staffer said. “It’s the rules. It’s how we’ve been doing it.”

Fourteen hours later, around 9 p.m. and after all the absentee ballots had been counted, Bonnie Chang, another member of the Board of Absentee Canvassers, went around with blank flash drives and downloaded the vote totals from the nine ballot tabulators in the warehouse.

A gaggle of observers followed her every step, while the chairman of the Republican Party of Milwaukee County, a member of the Wisconsin Election Commission who was one of Trump’s fake electors in 2020 and a host of others looked on.

As two county election workers who had been paired that day were leaving the warehouse, one leaned over to the other.

“It’ll be busy in November,” she said.

“We’ll make it through,” he said.

“We always do,” she responded.

This story is republished from Stateline, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

Pinellas County residents go to cast their voting ballots at the Coliseum polling precinct on Nov. 8, 2022 in St. Petersburg, Florida. (Photo by Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

Voter intimidation, an exodus of election workers fed up with harassment and continued misinformation and disinformation campaigns threaten the integrity of the November elections, say officials with the government watchdog group Common Cause.

This year will be the first presidential election since “the big lie,” Common Cause President Virginia Kase Solomón said on a July 30 video call with reporters.

She was referring to the effort by then-President Donald Trump and his allies to undermine Trump’s reelection loss in 2020 by promoting a series of unfounded conspiracy theories and encouraging supporters to obstruct Congress’ certification of the results on Jan. 6, 2021.

Common Cause is a nonpartisan organization and Solomón and other speakers did not mention Trump, who is again the Republican nominee for president, by name.

But Solomón said the country’s election integrity was damaged by the 2020 experience, with many veteran election workers opting to leave the profession rather than deal with the threats and harassment from believers in election conspiracies.

“We’re still living with the legacy of those lies,” she said. “They’ve undermined the faith of many Americans in our elections and fed anger and heated rhetoric … Those lies have also led to threats and harassment to election officials who have seen massive turnover in their ranks.”

On top of those challenges, election workers and voters also must deal this cycle with improving generative artificial intelligence tools that make disinformation easier than ever, Common Cause experts said.

And state laws, such as a measure that went into effect in Florida after the 2022 elections to cancel automatic delivery of vote-by-mail ballots, promise further confusion and disenfranchisement, they said.

To combat those threats to election integrity, the group is gearing up for campaign-season education drives.

Threats of violence

Instances of actual political violence remain rare, Suzanne Almeida, a Common Cause director of state operations who also leads the group’s work on political violence, said.

But threats, militant language, doxing and other harassment continue, Almeida said.

That has affected election workers, with a recent study from the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice finding that 38% of election workers had experienced threats and more than half of local election officials feared for their safety.

While surveys, including a recent University of California-Davis study, show that voters of both parties reject political violence, “candidates who have large platforms” have used them to drive turnout, Almeida said.

“We are seeing the normalization of hate, violent rhetoric, violent threats and harassment as a viable political strategy,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Trump campaign did not respond to a message seeking comment Tuesday.

AI and misinformation

Intentional efforts to disinform voters and accidental spreading of misinformation remain a growing problem, Common Cause’s media and democracy program director Ishan Mehta said.

The expansion and improvement of generative artificial intelligence makes it easier to create and spread fraudulent campaign content.

“The ubiquity of these tools means that you don’t have to be a computer expert anymore to have misinformation that would convince a lot, over half the population,” Mehta said.

Social media platforms that surged misinformation enforcement after Jan. 6 have now backed off enforcing misinformation, he said.

Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, tweeted a doctored video of likely Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over the weekend. Musk, who has endorsed Trump, bought the platform in 2022. He boasts 192 million followers.

Florida law

Amy Keith, the executive director of Common Cause Florida, said recent changes to state election law will create confusion and deprive some voters of ballots.

More than 1.9 million Floridians who received a mail-in ballot in 2022 will not receive one this cycle, she said. The state enacted a law after that election that required voters to send new requests for mail-in ballots with additional identification.

“Even if some of those 1.9 million people might not wish to vote by mail this year, we know that thousands and thousands of Florida voters are likely expecting a mail ballot to arrive in their mailbox,” she said. “And it isn’t going to.”

Ahead of the state’s Aug. 20 primary, Common Cause and allied groups are “really working to spread the message” to voters that they need to request a mail-in ballot if they wish to vote that way, and that they can vote in person even if they have requested a mail ballot, Keith said.

Deploying poll monitors

While predicting widespread violence on Election Day would not happen, Common Cause Pennsylvania Executive Director Philip Hensley-Robin anticipated some instances of political violence or intimidation.

The group would send “hundreds of poll monitors” across the commonwealth to record such instances, with monitors who will also be trained in deescalation, he said.

Hensley-Robin began his remarks by acknowledging the “tragic events” of the assassination attempt on Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, but said the “isolated incident” would not deter voters from turning out.

He also anticipated that some would mount “spurious” lawsuits to “disenfranchise voters and undermine public confidence” in the election, but predicted those would be quickly dismissed.

Trump’s campaign lost scores of lawsuits challenging 2020 election results.

Voter outreach

Solomón said Common Cause would be reminding voters to be on the lookout for misinformation and disinformation, especially from AI, and that it’s likely Election Day will end without a clear winner in the presidential race, a situation that has encouraged conspiracy theories about election fraud.

“That’s not a sign that anything is wrong,” she said.

The group will also be in touch with election workers to understand their needs and to offer assistance, she said.

She added that democracy had to be proactive.

“In the 2020 election, I think there was a false narrative that came out of that, and that was that democracy held and did what it was supposed to do,” she said. “And one of the things that I like to remind people of is that democracy did not hold. We made it hold.”

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, speaks to a crowd while accepting the 2024 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award. (Screenshot via JFK Library Foundation livestream)

Accepting the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award Sunday night, Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams thanked the JFK Library Foundation for incentivizing political courage “because it may be needed now more than ever before.”?

Adams, a Republican who was elected to a second term last fall, was selected for his work to increase voting days in Kentucky, as well as for standing up for free and fair elections despite ire from fellow Republicans and death threats from election deniers. His selection was announced in May; the ceremony took place Sunday night at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.?

“Today’s politics penalizes the workhorse and rewards the showhorse,” Adams told the gala gathering. “It prizes provocateurs and punishes problem solvers, and now that social media have made everybody an expert in everything, we risk dissent from the Madisonian model of democracy, in which we elect our best as trustees to run our government on our behalf, to a tainted model, in which independent and judicious thought in our leaders is not encouraged. Indeed, leadership is out and followership is in.”?

In his remarks to the crowd, Adams reflected on steps he took during his first term to maintain election access and integrity in 2020 — when a heated presidential race was on the ballot and before there was a vaccine for the highly contagious coronavirus that held the world in the grip of a pandemic. Adams worked with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear to protect Kentuckians’ access to the ballot safely. That included expanded absentee voting and early voting days, the latter being something that Adams continues to support heading into this year’s presidential election.?

Jack Schlossberg, the only grandson of the former president and member of the award committee, said that Adams’ alliance with Beshear “wasn’t easy, and he took a lot of heat for it.” Adams’ respect for the 2020 presidential election results also made him a political target within his own party.?

“Adams, his staff — even his family — received death threats and physical confrontations, and members of his own party recruited two challengers to unseat him in a primary,” Schlossberg said. “It got so bleak that in 2020, Adams believed his political career might be over. He responded with optimism and courage. His strategy was simple, but not easy.”?

Schlossberg added that many of those pandemic-era voting changes later became permanent in Kentucky. Adams was the top vote-getter among constitutional candidates during the 2023 general election, winning 118 of 120 counties.?

Adams was given the award not for opposing fellow Republicans, Schlossberg said, but “because he put himself, his family and his career on the line to protect the right to vote.”

“We honor his political courage tonight by casting our ballots in November,” Schlossberg said. “His sacrifice is a great reminder to all of us: the right to vote is sacred. Don’t throw it away by staying home or voting for someone who can’t win.”

Created by members of the Kennedy family in 1989, the award honors public officials who demonstrate leadership in the spirit of “Profiles in Courage,” the president’s book about eight U.S. senators who took unpopular stands despite opposition from constituents and their political parties.?

Adams said Kennedy’s observations about the pressure politicians face in that book, published in 1956, are “timeless,” and that courage by all public servants, including secretaries of state, county clerks, health officials, school board members and more, is needed today.?

“There are others who have risked far more than I,” Adams said. “I would like to think I’ve been given this award to celebrate a happy ending, and to mark an example others should follow in order to keep the American experiment in self-government alive.”

Previous winners of the JFK Profile in Courage Award include U.S. presidents and members of Congress.?

While John F. Kennedy, then a Democratic U.S. senator from Massachusetts, took a leave of absence from Congress to recover from back surgery, he revisited a topic he had longtime interest in — political courage. That resulted in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Profiles in Courage,” which focuses on senators from across the political spectrum overcoming opposition for the greater good.?

The John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award recognizes modern-day public officials who exhibit the spirit that Kennedy admired. More than 80 recipients have been awarded the prize, including heads of state, governors, mayors and members of Congress.?

Previous honorees include:?

• Republican President George H.W. Bush?
• Democratic President Barack Obama
• Republican President Gerald Ford
• U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah?
• Former Speaker of the House U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California
• Former U.S. Sen. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Arizona
• Former U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia
• Former U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona

U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell speaks Thursday to members of the Kentucky National Guard. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Jamie Lucke)

FRANKFORT — U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that President Joe Biden should allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons to launch attacks inside Russia.

McConnell said he’s “consistently argued” with the administration that its restriction against Ukraine launching U.S. weapons across the border into Russia “doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“I think they should be allowed to hit the Russians in Russia.”?

Later in the day, Politico reported that Biden has quietly given Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia with U.S. weapons but only in the area around Kharkiv.

McConnell was speaking to media at a Kentucky National Guard hangar after an event in which Gov. Andy Beshear and General Haldane Lamberton, Kentucky’s adjutant general, thanked the state’s longest-serving U.S. senator for his role in bringing federal funds to military projects in Kentucky.

During his remarks to a crowd that included about 40 uniformed Guard members, McConnell renewed his warnings that Russia, China and Iran pose dangers to democracy. He likened today’s international challenges to the period before World War II.?

“We thought it would all go away if we just ignored it. That’s clearly not going to happen again this time, at least not without me making the contrary argument.”

McConnell called for increased defense spending as a deterrent to aggression and thanked the National Guard members for their service.

McConnell is stepping down at the end of the year as his party’s leader in the U.S. Senate but will continue to serve as a senator from Kentucky. He hasn’t said if he will seek reelection in 2026.

Speaking briefly to media after the event, McConnell noted that the Biden administration was considering lifting its restriction to allow Ukraine to use U.S. weapons to launch counterattacks on installations and military personnel inside Russia. The restriction was intended to reduce the risk of the war escalating into other countries.?

McConnell said the Ukranians should be free to defend themselves with U.S. weapons, calling Ukraine’s self-defense “a way to stand up to the Russians without losing American personnel.”

Hours later, Politico, citing unnamed officials and others familiar with the situation, reported that Biden has eased — but not lifted — the restriction. “The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use U.S. weapons for counter-fire purposes in Kharkiv so Ukraine can hit back at Russian forces hitting them or preparing to hit them,” one of the U.S. officials said, adding that the policy of not allowing long-range strikes inside Russia “has not changed.”

In response to questions, McConnell said the rising isolationism among Republicans in Congress also is similar to before World War II and even after the war when Republicans opposed NATO and the Marshall Plan. The election of Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a general and leader of Allied forces in World War II, changed that, McConnell said.?

“What China, North Korea, Russia and Iran have in common is they are authoritarian dictators. It’s sort of a potential war between the authoritarians and the democracies. All of us who are threatened elect our leadership and so authoritarians are the people that we’re standing up to and we have to convince them the price of taking us on is too big a price for them to pay.”

McConnell said the U.S. and its many democratic allies from Europe to the Indo-Pacific are “all in this together.”

“The whole democratic world needs to stand up and they look to us for leadership.”

McConnell also said, “The cheapest way to be ready is to have your defense budget high enough and industrial base built enough that you never have the conflict in the first place.”

This story has been updated with information about action by the Biden administration.

Over the last year or more, several states?have passed legislation restricting the use of AI in political ads or requiring that it be disclosed. (Photo via Getty Images)

Members of the U.S. Senate are sounding the alarm about the threat that artificial intelligence poses to elections through its ability to deceive voters. But the prospects for legislation that can meaningfully address the problem appear uncertain.

In a Wednesday hearing, the Senate Rules Committee advanced three bills designed to counter the AI threat. But the only one to receive support from Republicans on the panel would simply create voluntary guidelines for election officials. It stops well short of restricting the use of AI in elections or even requiring disclosure of its use — steps that a growing number of states have already taken.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who chairs the Rules Committee and introduced all three measures, said the ability of generative AI to create deceptive images fundamentally threatens fair elections.

“We are going to see this resurgence of fakery and scams going on in our elections,” said Klobuchar. “And whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whether you’re a conservative or a liberal, we cannot have our democracy undermined by ads and videos where you literally don’t know if it’s the candidate you love or the candidate you dislike.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer framed the stakes as even higher.

“Our democracy may never recover if we lose the ability to distinguish at all between what’s true and what’s false, as AI threatens to do,” said the New York Democrat, whose appearance at the hearing was a potential signal that he aims to prioritize the legislation.

AI robocalls, images

The dangers posed by AI were starkly illustrated in February, when thousands of New Hampshire voters received a robocall with an AI-generated voice impersonating President Joe Biden, urging them not to vote in the upcoming state primary. A Democratic operative working for a rival candidate has admitted to commissioning the calls.

And last June, the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis released a video that appeared to use AI-generated images of former President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former chief medical adviser to Biden who is deeply unpopular among GOP primary voters.

Klobuchar added at the hearing that she wanted to keep the issue out of the “partisan milieu.” Blue, purple and red states have lately passed laws to address the AI threat, she noted. And all three pieces of legislation Klobuchar has introduced have Republican co-sponsors.

Still, there were signs that avoiding partisan politics could prove impossible.

Republicans in Congress, often led by House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana, have strongly opposed previous efforts by the Biden administration to restrict the spread of political disinformation, saying they violate speech rights and give too much power to government regulators.

Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., the ranking Republican on the panel, raised similar concerns Wednesday about two of the Klobuchar bills: the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act, and the AI Transparency in Elections Act.

The Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act would bar deceptive AI video or audio relating to candidates for federal office. It was introduced in September by Klobuchar and has five co-sponsors, including Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

The AI Transparency in Elections Act requires that political ads that use AI contain a statement disclosing its use. That measure, introduced by Klobuchar in March, is co-sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

The two bills, Fischer argued, “increase burdens on speech,” and are too vague in defining AI, creating uncertainty about whether a speaker might be subject to penalties. They also aim to federalize the issue and pre-empt state law, encroaching on state control of elections, Fischer added.

Both measures were passed out of the Rules Committee Wednesday on party-line votes, with no Republican support. (The official vote count in both cases was 9-2, because some Republicans who didn’t attend the hearing voted ’no by proxy,’ which isn’t counted as an official vote.)

The third measure, the Preparing Election Administrators for AI Act, was passed out of committee unanimously.

It would require the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to consult with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in creating voluntary guidelines for election officials for how to protect against the threat of AI in elections, especially with respect to its use by foreign adversaries.

On May 13, Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Penn., and Chrissy Houlahan, D-Penn., introduced companion legislation in the House.

Over the last year or more, states including Texas, Florida, New York, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Oregon, Utah, New Mexico and Idaho all have passed legislation restricting the use of AI in political ads or requiring that it be disclosed.

A ballot drop box in Madison, Wisconsin, that has been put out of commission. Since 2020, drop boxes have become a target for many on the right, who argue that they were insecure and could allow for fraud — though very few examples have been found in Wisconsin or elsewhere. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

In Wisconsin, voters don’t yet know whether the ballot drop boxes that were in use in the state for years will be allowed this fall.

Georgians are waiting to find out whether much of their state’s sweeping 2021 voting law, which imposed a range of restrictions, will be in place.

In North Carolina, procedures for same-day voter registration and voter ID are still being fought over. And the rules to be used by election administrators to run Arizona’s vote also are up in the air.

With less than 120 days until some states mail out general election ballots, important voting regulations in nearly every major 2024 battleground remain the subject of legal battles. That means court decisions yet to come could go a long way toward determining the level of Americans’ ballot access.

They could also help determine the next president. A New York Times/Siena poll released May 13 found President Joe Biden leading or trailing narrowly in the key states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which together would likely be enough for him to win reelection, while former President Donald Trump leads more comfortably in Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia. The leading polling averages also show a very tight race.

Many of these high-stakes legal cases stem from lawsuits filed by Republicans or their allies, looking to impose tighter rules on the voting process to guard against fraud, which is extremely rare. Almost all the rest come from claims brought by Democrats or their allies, or by voting advocates, aiming to loosen the rules and expand access.

In a recent statement, Democrats called the GOP lawsuits “meritless,” and “designed only to try to undermine our democracy and voters’ confidence in it.” But federal courts have increasingly given respectful hearings to politically charged claims that many experts have called frivolous — meaning there can be few guarantees about how these cases will fare.

The uncertainty that comes with unresolved litigation could risk voter confusion in the fall, especially if there are late rule changes, some experts warn. But voting advocates say court rulings that favor voters are welcome, even if they come late in the game.

“I don’t think any voter is going to be confused or unhappy if the change in the rules favors their ballot being counted when it otherwise would have been rejected,” said Jon Sherman, the litigation director at the Fair Elections Center, a voter advocacy group.

The pileup of crucial cases in pivotal states is similar to other recent cycles. That means voting advocates on the ground have some practice at ensuring that voters get the most up-to-date information, said Hannah Fried, the founder and executive director of All Voting Is Local. The organization works with grassroots partners to protect and expand voter access.

“But it does get harder later on in the cycle,” Fried added. “And there’s a lot of litigation.”

Perhaps most striking, it means that, as an election with historically high stakes approaches, just how easy it will be for millions of Americans in pivotal states to cast a ballot and have it counted remains an unanswered question.

Here are some swing states and their biggest legal disputes:

Wisconsin

In the Badger State, which polls suggest could be closer than any other in this year’s presidential race, two key voting issues are still unresolved in the courts.

On May 13, the state’s Supreme Court began hearing a case in which progressive groups, now joined by the state’s Democratic attorney general, are challenging a 2021 decision that banned the ballot drop boxes that many voters had used for years to return mail ballots. At the time of that ruling, there were 570 drop boxes operating in the state, the Wisconsin Examiner has reported.

During and after the 2020 election, drop boxes became a target for many on the right, who argued that they were insecure and could allow for fraud — though very few examples have been found in Wisconsin or elsewhere.

Since 2021, the state Supreme Court’s majority has shifted from conservative to liberal, raising hopes among Democrats that the ban could be overturned.

A second ongoing case could turn out to be even more consequential, because it affects not just how easy or hard it is to cast a ballot, but whether certain votes will be counted at all.

Unlike in almost all other states, mail ballots in Wisconsin must be signed by a witness who can verify the voter’s identity, and the witness must provide their full address. In 2016, the state issued guidance that if a witness had left off a part of their address, like the ZIP code or town, local election administrators could fill it in if they could reasonably ascertain it. That allowed those ballots to be counted.

But in 2022, a Republican lawsuit led a state court to block that guidance, meaning those ballots — which could number in the thousands this fall, advocates estimate — are now at risk of being rejected.

A lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters charges that rejecting ballots based on immaterial factors like a missing ZIP code violates federal civil rights law.

“It makes no sense to reject the ballot when you can locate and identify the witness,” said Sherman, of the Fair Elections Center, which is representing the plaintiffs in the case. “You’re just rejecting it based on a technicality.”

A district court ruled for the LWV, and the case is currently on appeal.

Georgia?

The Peachtree State’s sweeping 2021 voting law imposed tighter rules on various aspects of the voting process, and made Georgia the poster child for a wave of concern about voter suppression after the 2020 election. Two important lawsuits spurred by the measure, both of which could have big implications for the mail ballot process, remain ongoing.

One, brought by voting and civil rights groups and consolidated from a group of similar suits, challenges several of the law’s planks, many relating to mail ballots.

Among them: rules limiting where ballot drop boxes can be placed and when they can be made available to voters; restrictions on who can help a voter return a mail ballot; and a requirement that mail ballots be rejected if the voter birthdate on the outer envelope doesn’t match with the voter’s registration record.

The suit also challenges the law’s assessment of criminal penalties on people who give food and water to voters waiting in line — a provision that has made the jump to popular culture among critics of the GOP’s strict voting polices.

A federal court has temporarily blocked some challenged provisions, and declined to block others. In February, the U.S. Justice Department asked to intervene on the side of the plaintiffs. The litigation is ongoing.

A separate lawsuit filed by civic engagement groups challenges provisions of the law that restrict their ability to help people apply for a mail ballot. The measure fines outside groups $100 for every ballot application they send to a voter who has already requested or received an application, and adds other rules to the process.

“(I)n some cases (the challenged provisions) are impossible to comply with or would present such prohibitively expensive financial burdens that some groups, like Plaintiffs…may have no choice but to cease their operations in Georgia altogether,” the groups bringing the lawsuit, who helped hundreds of thousands of Georgians to register in 2020 and 2021, allege in the complaint.

The Republican National Committee and other national and state GOP groups have joined Georgia in defending the challenged provisions. A trial took place in federal court last month, and a ruling is awaited.

Arizona

The Grand Canyon State was the closest in the nation in 2020. Now, Republicans and their allies have filed lawsuits against Democratic election officials there, mostly seeking stricter voting policies.

The Republican National Committee and state GOP are challenging the Election Procedures Manual, a list of rules for running elections released last year, as required by law, by Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

Republicans allege that the manual makes it too hard to remove voters from the rolls if they’re found to have said they’re a noncitizen when answering a questionnaire for jury duty; wrongly allows voters who haven’t shown proof of citizenship to vote in the presidential election and to vote by mail; doesn’t require election officials to do enough to find noncitizens on the rolls; and wrongly limits the public’s ability to view a voter’s signature to verify their mail ballot. The litigation is ongoing.

Another lawsuit, this one brought by a conservative legal group founded by the former Trump White House adviser Stephen Miller, challenges election rules adopted by Arizona’s largest county, Maricopa, as well as two other counties. One of its claims is that Maricopa’s placement of voting sites favors Black and Hispanic voters and discriminates against white and Native voters. It also charges that all three counties make it too easy for a voter to “cure” their mail ballot in cases when the signature on the ballot doesn’t match that in voter registration records.

A state appeals court paused the case on May 1. America First Legal did not respond to a message asking about their plans for responding.

North Carolina

Two important voting rules in the Tarheel State are still being hashed out in the courts.

A trial began May 6 in a challenge brought by the state NAACP to North Carolina’s voter ID law, which was passed in 2018. The lawsuit claims that the measure, which requires voters to present one of 10 forms of ID, discriminates against Black and Hispanic voters, who are more likely to lack ID.

An earlier restrictive voting law passed by North Carolina Republicans, that included a strict photo ID requirement, was struck down in 2016 by a federal judge, who ruled that it targeted Black voters with “surgical precision.”

Another lawsuit, this one filed by the progressive group Democracy NC, targets a different voting restriction — a provision of a state law passed last year that makes it easier for election officials to reject votes cast by voters who used same-day voter registration, if mail sent to their address is returned as undeliverable.

It isn’t yet clear whether the suit will be heard before the election. A federal judge last month declined a Republican request to put it on hold.

Michigan

The Great Lakes State has flipped back and forth in recent presidential elections and may again be pivotal this year. Several election cases are underway there, which could affect voters.

The RNC and state GOP are suing Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over guidance from her office instructing local election officials to give a “presumption of validity” to the signatures that people voting by mail must provide when applying for a mail ballot, and must also write on the ballot return envelope. The guidance violates the state Constitution and state law, Republicans allege.

Benson’s office has sought to have the case thrown out, claiming the plaintiffs “have not identified a single signature that they contend local clerks have been required to accept … that otherwise would not have been accepted.”

It isn’t known how many votes might be at stake, but in 2022, nearly 1.9 million Michiganders voted by mail — around 42% of all voters.

Two other lawsuits, one filed by the RNC and another by a conservative legal group, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, accuse Benson of inadequate voter roll maintenance and aim to require her office to do more to remove names from the rolls. Fifty-three of the state’s 83 counties have more registered voters than eligible voters, the RNC claims.

A federal judge dismissed the suit filed by PILF, which has brought numerous similar lawsuits in other suits, mostly unsuccessfully. That ruling is currently being appealed. Benson’s office has asked a judge to dismiss the RNC suit.

Finally, Michigan GOP lawmakers are challenging reforms approved by voters via ballot measures in 2018 and 2022, which allowed early voting and no-excuse vote-by-mail, among other steps. Republicans claim the measures improperly bypassed the state legislature, which has exclusive authority to set voting rules — a version of the “Independent State Legislature Theory” that the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last year.

A federal judge last month threw out the lawsuit, but Republicans filed an appeal May 3. Though experts see the challenge as a long shot, any unexpected ruling favorable to the plaintiffs could throw the state’s election into turmoil, given the popularity of early and mail voting.

Pennsylvania

Republicans in the Keystone State are also relying on the Independent State Legislature Theory in a lawsuit that challenges Gov. Josh Shapiro’s creation of an automatic voter registration system. That system was facilitated by a 2021 executive order issued by Biden, which gave states access to federal data to help set up such voting registration. Biden’s order is also being challenged.

The lawsuit claims that both Biden’s order and Shapiro’s creation of the AVR system — which fulfilled a promise he campaigned on — improperly sidelined the state legislature.

A district court dismissed the case, but last month Republicans filed a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene. Most observers see that as unlikely. But, as with the Michigan case, any ruling blocking Pennsylvania’s AVR system could create barriers for many potential voters.

Also not entirely resolved is the status of mail ballots with missing or incomplete dates.

A 2022 RNC lawsuit seeking to have those ballots — which numbered over 10,000 in 2020 — thrown out was successful. Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union filed their own suit seeking to reverse the ruling, which was rejected. The ACLU could still ask the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, or take the issue back to a lower court. But it looks likely that the ruling saying the ballots must be rejected will stay in place for the fall.

Nevada

Since 2020, the Silver State has been a hotspot for Republican efforts to stoke fears about illegal voting, based on little evidence.

The Republican National Committee and state GOP are suing Democratic Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar, charging that the state is violating federal voting law by not doing enough to maintain accurate voter rolls. Three counties, the lawsuit alleges, have more registered voters than people eligible to vote, and two more — including Clark County, the state’s key Democratic stronghold — have implausibly high registration rates of over 90%.

Aguilar has called the suit “meritless,” saying the GOP’s claims are based on flawed data, and has sought to have it thrown out.

Conservative groups have in recent years filed numerous similar lawsuits aimed at forcing election officials to more aggressively pare the rolls, and most have failed.

New York

Unlike the other states here, New York isn’t a presidential battleground, but it contains several swing congressional districts that could help determine control of the House.

Voters in the Empire State face uncertainty thanks to a lawsuit filed by the RNC and other Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, which challenges a Democratic-backed reform, passed last year, allowing voters to cast a mail ballot without an excuse. The plaintiffs allege the law violates the state constitution.

In 2020, when no-excuse mail voting was temporarily allowed because of the pandemic, nearly 2 million New Yorkers — over 20% of total voters — took advantage of it.

A district court dismissed the lawsuit in February, and an appellate court unanimously affirmed that ruling May 9. Four days later, Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.

Kentucky Senate President Robert Stivers has raised $500,000 in campaign contributions, some of which he is sharing with other Republican candidates. Stivers is running unopposed. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — Since no one challenged him for reelection this year, Senate President Robert Stivers has used his overstuffed campaign fund as a sort of personal political action committee that makes political contributions of its own and has paid other expenses including nearly $10,000 for a dinner party to thank his donors and supporters at a posh Louisville restaurant.

The Manchester Republican who has presided over the Senate since 2013 launched an early fundraising push last fall while Kentucky’s political world was focused on the governor’s race. Stivers raised more than a half million dollars as traditional Republican donors, race track gambling companies, highway contractors and other special interests lined up to donate to the Kentucky General Assembly’s most powerful member.

Republicans who got contributions from Stivers’ reelection committee:

Chris McDaniel, Ryland Heights, Senate 23rd District, $2,000

Jason Howell, Murray, Senate 1st District, $2,000

Johnnie Turner, Baxter, Senate 29th District, $2,000

Steve Meredith, Leitchfield, Senate 5th District, $2,000

Ed Gallrein, Shelbyville, Senate 7th District, $2,000

Matt Nunn, Sadieville, Senate 17th District, $2,000

David Givens, Greensburg, Senate 9th District, $2,000

Steve West, Paris, Senate 27th District, $2,000

Kim Moser, Taylor Mill, House 64th District, $2,000

Michael Meredith, Oakland, House 19th District, $2,000

Ed Massey, Hebron, House 66th District, $2,000

Tom O’Dell Smith, Gray, House 86th District, $2,000

Killian Timony, Nicholasville, House 45th District, $2,000

Timmy Truett, McKee, House 89th District, $1,000

Richard Heath, Mayfield, House 2nd District, $2,000

Note: Stivers’ report lists two contributions of $2,000 each to Steve Meredith. This is an apparent erroneous double entry because $2,100 is the limit for contributions to a candidate for state legislature.

The huge campaign war chest helped scare off any challengers, and the Jan. 5 deadline passed with no one filing to run against Stivers in this year’s election, leaving him about $500,000 with no race to run.

Reports filed by Stivers’ campaign committee with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance (KREF) show that from the first of the year through Wednesday it has spent about $62,500. Only $3,690 of that went to basic campaign costs like printing, postage and website design.

Most of the spending was for political contributions —including $29,000 in late April to candidates from the traditional wing of the Republican Party who face challengers in the May 21? primary.

Stivers amends his report

Kentucky Lantern’s initial review of Stivers’ disclosures also found some large unexplained reimbursements to Stivers.

Stivers’ report originally listed three payments to Stivers on Feb. 24 totaling $9,744. The purpose listed for each of the payments was? simply “Reimbursement” without the required explanation of what the reimbursement was for.

Stivers said in a phone interview Thursday afternoon that he thought his reports had included full explanations for all expenses and reimbursements. He said that the $9,744 was for a celebratory dinner in Louisville to thank his supporters and donors after no one had filed to run against him.

“We have all the documents and receipts,” he told theLantern. “If we need to we will file an amended report.”

That’s just what Stivers did later Thursday. The amended report says the $9,744 paid to Stivers was for “Reimbursement For Dinner For Donors And Supporters At Hotel Distil/Restaurant Repeal.”

The Repeal restaurant bills itself as “Whiskey Row’s only oak-fired steakhouse” that offers “an award-winning menu” and “internationally acclaimed wine list.”

Stivers insisted that he was never trying to obscure that his campaign paid for a fancy celebration. “I have nothing to hide.” He likened the dinner expense to the cost a candidate might incur to rent a hotel ballroom on election night to celebrate a victory. “This was a normal campaign expense.”

He also bristled at the suggestion that his campaign committee has become something of a political slush fund. “No. ‘Slush fund’ has an illegal connotation. This is not illegal. . . .? These are normal expenses, I’ve done it in the past.”

Stivers said making political contributions, or making donations to local civic organizations, sponsoring a sports team or club at a local school, giving dinners or gifts to supporters are all true political expenses that establish loyalty from supporters and goodwill in the community.

“It’s good politics. I want to thank them,” he said.

Here’s a closer look at what Kentucky Lantern’s review of Stivers’ campaign finance reports shows.

A windfall of contributions last fall

Between Sept. 21 and Dec. 6 last year Stivers raised about $510,000 — an extraordinarily large amount for a state legislator. The windfall included donations from 82 special interest PACs totaling about $100,000.

Gambling interests gave big: Officials of Churchill Downs gave $16,350, officials of Kentucky Downs in Franklin gave a bit more — $16,800.

Longtime donors to establishment incumbent Republicans gave: Terry Forcht, head of Forcht Bank in Corbin and other businesses, gave the maximum contribution allowed — $2,100. At least 16 officials of? Forcht’s companies gave another $20,000.

Alliance Resource Partners CEO Joe Craft and his wife Kelly Craft each gave $2,100. The Alliance PAC gave $2,000.

Spending: Reimbursements to Stivers

The biggest payee so far this year has been Stivers himself. The campaign has reimbursed him $11,547 since the start of the year including a total of $9,944 to pay for the dinner party at Repeal. (That includes the initially undisclosed $9,744 plus another $200 that was fully disclosed in Stivers’ initial reports.)

Besides that big dinner’s cost, reports list $1,874 in additional reimbursements to Stivers when he picked up the tab for supporters, donors and friends. Here’s the list:

• $995 for “Gifts of Breakfast Meats for Supports And Donors”
• $210 for “Breakfast For Supporters”
• $139? for “Chick-Fila Lunch for Staff”
• $167 for “Lunch For Clay County Students At Capital Annex Café”
• $100 for an April 30 for “Dinner With Owsley Co. Officials And Supporters.”

Civic and charitable donations – $1,500

The campaign lists five payments as sponsorships, purchases of advertising, or donations to the following groups since Jan. 1: $1,000 to Oneida Tourism, $250 to Oneida Outdoor Adventures, $100 to Shriners, $50 to “CCMS”, and $100 to Owen County High School.

Political donations – $44,000

Early this year his campaign gave $5,000 to the Kentucky House Republican Caucus Committee, $5,000 to the Senate Republican Caucus Committee, and $5,000 to a state Republican Party trust dedicated to electing the party’s state Senate candidates.

And in the last two weeks his campaign reported making 15 contributions totaling $29,000 to candidates for the Kentucky House and Senate who do face opposition this year. Those donations went mostly to incumbent Republican members of the Kentucky Senate and House and challengers who could be described as more traditional Republicans rather than candidates of the so-called “liberty” faction of the party.

Stivers’ campaign committee reported on Wednesday it still has $406,921 on hand.

Voters line up outside a Takoma Park, Maryland, polling place. Takoma Park is one of 17 jurisdictions nationally that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections. (Jose Luis Magana/The Associated Press)

Preventing people who are not United States citizens from casting a ballot has reemerged as a focal point in the ongoing Republican drive to safeguard “election integrity,” even though noncitizens are rarely involved in voter fraud.

Ahead of November’s presidential election, congressional and state Republican lawmakers are aiming to keep noncitizens away from the polls. They’re using state constitutional amendments and new laws that require citizenship verification to vote. Noncitizens can vote in a handful of local elections in several states, but already are not allowed to vote in statewide or federal elections.

Some Republicans argue that preventing noncitizens from casting ballots — long a boogeyman in conservative politics — reduces the risk of fraud and increases confidence in American democracy. But even some on the right think these efforts are going too far, as they churn up anti-immigration sentiment and unsupported fears of widespread fraud, all to boost turnout among the GOP base.

While Republican congressional leaders want to require documentation proving U.S. citizenship when registering to vote in federal elections, voters in at least four states will decide on ballot measures in November that would amend their state constitutions to clarify that only U.S. citizens can vote in state and local elections.

Over the past six years, Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, North Dakota and Ohio have all amended their state constitutions.

In Kentucky — which along with Idaho, Iowa and Wisconsin is now considering a constitutional amendment — noncitizens voting will not be tolerated, said Republican state Sen. Damon Thayer, who voted in February to put the amendment on November’s ballot. Five Democrats between the two chambers backed the Republican-authored legislation, while 16 others dissented.

“There is a lot of concern here about the Biden administration’s open border policies,” Thayer, the majority floor leader, told Stateline. “People see it on the news every day, with groups of illegals pouring through the border. And they’re combined with concerns on election integrity.”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed similar concerns last month when he announced new legislation — despite an existing 1996 ban — that would make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. During a trip to Florida to meet with former President Donald Trump, the Louisiana Republican said it’s common sense to require proof of citizenship.

“It could, if there are enough votes, affect the presidential election,” he said, standing in front of Trump in the presumptive presidential nominee’s Mar-a-Lago resort. “We cannot wait for widespread fraud to occur, especially when the threat of fraud is growing with every single illegal immigrant that crosses that border.”

That rhetoric is rooted in a fear about how the U.S. is changing demographically, becoming more diverse as the non-white population increases, said longtime Republican strategist Mike Madrid. Though this political strategy has worked to galvanize support among GOP voters in the past, he questions whether this will be effective politically in the long term.

“There’s no problem being solved here,” said Madrid, whose forthcoming book, “The Latino Century,” outlines the group’s growing voter participation. “This is all politics. It’s all about stoking fears and angering the base.”

Noncitizens are voting in some elections around the country, but not in a way that many might think.

Where noncitizens vote

In 16 cities and towns in California, Maryland and Vermont (along with the District of Columbia), noncitizens are allowed to vote in some local elections, such as for school board or city council. Voters in Santa Ana, California, will decide in November whether to allow noncitizens to vote in citywide elections.

In 2022, New York’s State Supreme Court struck down New York City’s 2021 ordinance that allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections, ruling it violated the state constitution. Proponents have argued that people, regardless of citizenship status, should be able to vote on local issues affecting their children and community.

During the first 150 years of the U.S., 40 states at various times permitted noncitizens to vote in elections. That came to a halt in the 1920s when nativism ramped up and states began making voting a privilege for only U.S. citizens.

The number of noncitizen voters has been relatively small, and those voters are never allowed to participate in statewide or national elections. Local election officials maintain separate voter lists to keep noncitizens out of statewide databases.

In Vermont’s local elections in March, 62 noncitizens voted in Burlington, 13 voted in Montpelier and 11 voted in Winooski, all accounting for a fraction of the total votes.

In Takoma Park, Maryland, of the 347 noncitizens who were registered to vote in 2017, just 72 cast a ballot, according to the latest data provided by the city. And in San Francisco, 36 noncitizens registered to vote in 2020 and 31 voted.

Voter turnout among noncitizens is low for two reasons, said Ron Hayduk, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University, who is one of the leading scholars in this area. Many noncitizens in these jurisdictions do not realize they have the right to vote, and many are afraid of deportation or legal issues, he said.

Registration forms in jurisdictions that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections do acknowledge the risks. In San Francisco, local election officials warn that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other agencies could gain access to the city’s registration lists and advise residents to consult an immigration attorney before registering to vote.

“Immigrants were very excited about this new right to vote, they wanted to vote, but many of them did not ultimately register and vote because they were concerned,” Hayduk said.

While there are some noncitizens participating in a handful of local elections, they’re not participating illegally in any substantial way in state and national elections.

Though there’s room for legitimate debate about whether noncitizens should be allowed to vote at the local level, there is no widespread voter fraud among noncitizens nationally, said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.

In 2020, federal investigators charged 19 noncitizens for voting in North Carolina elections. A national database run by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, shows that there have been fewer than 100 cases of voter fraud tied to noncitizens since 2002, according to a recent count by The Washington Post.

Trump continues to falsely assert that he was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election and that he had more of the popular vote in 2016. He has claimed without evidence that voter fraud was to blame, including in part from noncitizens.

With illegal immigration near the top of major issues for voters ahead of November, Trump and his movement sense they have momentum with the public to tie immigration concerns with their continued election claims, Olson said.

It’s a way of keeping Democrats on the back foot, by falsely accusing them of allowing immigrants to come into the country illegally so they can vote, he added.

“The imaginings that there is some sort of plot by an entire major political party is just remarkably evidence-free,” he said.

Fighting ‘the left’

Although voter fraud among noncitizens is not happening widely, states should still add protections to their voting systems to prevent that possibility, said Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican.

Kentucky Republicans and Democrats prepare to face off on ‘school choice’ amendment

Raffensperger has been a major proponent of a Peach State law that requires documentation to verify the citizenship status of voters. In 2022, he announced that an internal audit of Georgia’s voter rolls over the past 25 years found that 1,634 noncitizens had attempted to register to vote, but not a single one cast a ballot.

“I will continue to fight the left on this issue so that only American citizens decide American elections,” Raffensperger wrote in a statement to Stateline.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia are actively considering legislation that would add ballot initiatives for November to prevent noncitizen voting. Those bills are at various points in the legislative process, with many having already passed one chamber.

During a committee hearing last week, Republican Missouri state Sen. Ben Brown said the state’s constitutional language is vague enough to allow cities to let noncitizens vote. While presenting his bill, he cited California’s parallel constitutional wording and how cities such as Oakland and San Francisco allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.

Most state constitutions have similar language around voter eligibility, saying that “every” U.S. citizen that is 18 or over can vote. The proposed amendments usually would change one word, emphasizing that “only” U.S. citizens can vote, eliminating an ambiguity in the text that has left room for cities in several states to allow noncitizen participation in elections.

It’s a “pretty simple” fix, said Jack Tomczak, vice president of outreach for Americans for Citizen Voting, a group that works with state lawmakers to amend their constitutions so that only citizens can vote in state and local elections.

“It does dilute the voice of citizens of this country,” Tomczak said. “And it also dilutes the nature of citizenship.”

This story is republished from Stateline, a sister publication to the Kentucky Lantern and part of the nonprofit States Newsroom network.

Gov. Andy Beshear, left, chats with quarterback Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs and Brittany Mahomes at the 149th running of the Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs on May 6, 2023 in Louisville. (Photo by Rob Carr/Getty Images)

FRANKFORT —? Unlike his predecessors, Gov. Andy Beshear has declined to identify friends and political supporters who buy prime tickets to the Kentucky Derby made available by Churchill Downs each year for the governor’s guests.

The Louisville racetrack sets aside large numbers of Derby tickets for sale at face value to Kentucky elected officials, including hundreds to the governor’s group — many of them coveted hard-to-get prime seats.?

One purpose is to allow the state’s chief executive to entertain corporate executives considering investments in the Bluegrass State on that one day of the year when Kentucky shines in the national spotlight.

News articles about this time-honored practice over the past 25 years emphasized that Churchill Downs set aside far more tickets for the governor’s group than are needed by the state’s official corporate guests.?

Over those years, when asked by reporters, Beshear’s four immediate predecessors — including his father Gov. Steve Beshear — withheld the names of the official economic development guests but released lists of names of others who were able to buy the tickets from the governor’s batch. In each case, many of the tickets wound up in the hands of political donors, lobbyists and other supporters.

Those governors took some heat from ethics watchdogs who questioned why Churchill Downs — a major political contributor and potent lobbying presence in Frankfort — needed to give the governor control over enough hard-to-get tickets to take care of his friends.

But Beshear’s office says it has no lists of friends and supporters who got those tickets last year. Like his predecessors, Beshear has set-up a nonprofit corporation to broker his ticket allotment and manage his Derby events “for the promotion of economic development in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”?

Beshear’s nonprofit — called First Saturday in May Inc. —? declined to say how many tickets it purchased from Churchill last year and declined to release records showing who it sold those tickets to.

Churchill Downs failed to respond to questions emailed to it by Kentucky Lantern and numerous follow-up emails and phone calls.?

Though Kentucky Lantern had no luck in learning from Beshear who bought tickets from his allotment in 2023, other public records show that a large number of tickets from the governor’s batch may have been purchased by his political supporters in the Democratic Governors Association.

‘Why are you not letting us know…?’

Norman Ornstein, an authority on ethics in government and emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, said he has no serious problem with the underlying story of Churchill Downs setting aside so many tickets for the governor’s group.

“My only question now would be: Why are you not letting us know what other governors have let us know?”? Ornstein said in a phone interview.

Delaney Marsco, director of ethics at the Washington-based Campaign Legal Center, had a similar observation. “If this sort of information is not released it raises an appearance that something nefarious may be going on,” Marsco said.

Demand for good Derby tickets exceeds supply, even as the face-value cost of tickets has soared in recent years.?

Doug Dearen, owner of DerbyBox.com a Kentucky Derby tour, travel package and ticketing business, explains on his company’s website, “Horsemen, corporations, families and government have had Kentucky Derby tickets in their possession for over 130 years, which makes this one of the most difficult tickets to obtain in all of sports.”

As such, many Derby fans must go online to the secondary market to buy tickets at prices set by sellers. (A Courier-Journal story on Monday said Ticketmaster listed the prices of reserved Derby seats that day “starting at $923 and selling upward of $10,781.”)

But six news articles over the past 25 years (by The Courier-Journal, Lexington Herald-Leader or Associated Press) reported that many friends of the governors over that era got their tickets at face value from the governor’s batch.

Those articles say that the practice of past governors has been — upon request of a reporter — to release the number of tickets allotted to him and the names of those who bought them. They released the names soon after the Derby arguing that any list of names released before the Derby was preliminary and subject to last minute changes. Also, news articles show Beshear’s predecessors declined to release names of the official corporate guests on the grounds that doing so could damage prospective negotiations.

Those news articles reported that Churchill sold as many as 553 tickets to the governors group while Paul Patton was governor in 1999, and as few as 237 in 2016 under Matt Bevin. In between, the number was about 360 tickets.

Kentucky Lantern filed a request under the Open Records Act with the governor’s office in August for documents showing the names of who got tickets for the 2023 Derby from the governor’s batch.

The response of Beshear’s office was the opposite of his predecessors: Beshear’s office released documents showing names of 38 official corporate guests of the state’s economic development and tourism agencies in 2023. But it said it had no lists of names of anyone else who bought the 2023 Derby tickets.

First Saturday in May, Inc.

Detailed information about who buys tickets from the governor’s batch is retained by First Saturday in May Inc. But its treasurer, Melinda Karns, refused Kentucky Lantern’s request to review its records that would show how many tickets it got in 2023 and who bought them.

Karns, a Lexington certified public accountant who is also treasurer of the Kentucky Democratic Party and was treasurer of Beshear’s campaigns for attorney general and governor, did release the group’s most recent tax return (Form 990) for its fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2022. (That form showed annual revenues in 2021-22 of $820,057 and expenses of $758,531. But no names of Derby ticket buyers or donors to the nonprofit are on that form.)

In response to emails that pressed for specifics, Karns said in an email, “The Form 990 that we have provided to you shows the amount of money spent by the First Saturday in May on the Kentucky Derby. Additional tickets to the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby were privately purchased from Churchill Downs by the First Saturday in May at no expense to the Commonwealth.”

Democratic Governors Association

A disclosure report the Democratic Governors Association filed with the Internal Revenue Service last year shows that it apparently purchased many of those additional tickets.

The report shows that in early 2023 it paid $209,608 to First Saturday in May Inc. for “catering facilities.”

The Democratic Governors Association is a well-heeled national political fund dedicated to electing Democratic governors. The group’s priority last year was to reelect Beshear. It donated a massive $19 million to a super PAC called Defending Bluegrass Values that financed an independent campaign that helped Beshear win reelection in November over Republican Daniel Cameron.

DGA spokesman Sam Newton declined to say what exactly the DGA bought from First Saturday in May for $209,608. His emailed response to a question asking if the payment was for Derby tickets was that the money was for “a very successful event at the Kentucky Derby” that the DGA had hosted for several years.

Barren County boo-boo

The DGA’s involvement with Beshear’s 2023 Derby festivities briefly surfaced during the governor’s race last summer, causing some embarrassment to Beshear, the DGA, and especially for the Glasgow Barren County Industrial Development Economic Authority.

A disclosure form the DGA filed with the IRS listed the authority as a donor of $12,500, and that donation was included in news stories about donors to the DGA.

Officials of the authority board said during their August meeting that the donation was a mistake. The authority is partly taxpayer funded and barred from making political contributions, the authority’s chairman said.

Board member Larry Glass took responsibility. According to several news reports, Glass said he was approached by a person with connections to the Beshear administration and asked if he would be interested in representing Barren County at the governor’s Derby events where he could network with executives considering investment in Kentucky.

Glass said he was personally not interested, but suggested that it would be good for the board’s executive director to attend. Glass said he personally paid $12,500 to the authority — the cost for the executive director and her husband to attend the governor’s Derby Eve party, the Kentucky Oaks on the day before the Derby, and the Derby. The authority, in turn, wrote a $12,500 check to the DGA.

Glass told the Lexington Herald-Leader it was a mistake to funnel the money through the authority instead of paying the DGA himself. He said he could not remember who from the Beshear administration had approached him, but said he was not pressured to make the donation, the Herald-Leader reported.

The DGA later refunded the $12,500 to the authority, and an authority official said that amount was in turn refunded to Glass.

Republicans winning race for Churchill political dollars

Churchill Downs is a very big donor to political committees, and it backed Beshear’s reelection in a big way. More than 40 of its officials and employees combined to contribute $85,500 to Beshear’s reelection committees, and Churchill itself gave $275,000 last year to the DGA.

But Churchill and its executives have given far more to Republicans than Democrats in recent years, particularly to committees supporting incumbent Republican state legislators. And support of the Republican lawmakers was crucial in 2023 when the General Assembly passed a sports betting bill favorable to Kentucky’s racetracks and a bill to ban a game proliferating in parts of Kentucky — called a “gray” machine by opponents — that race tracks saw as illegal competition.?

This year alone Churchill has donated $200,000 to a political action committee called Commonwealth Conservative Coalition that is supporting mainstream Republican candidates for the legislature against their “liberty” opponents in upcoming ?primary elections. Also this year, Churchill has donated $100,000 to the Republican Party of Kentucky’s fund drive to renovate its headquarters in Frankfort.

Yes, other officials have access to Derby tickets

Churchill Downs has long made tickets available for sale to not just the governor, but also to all 138 state legislators, the statewide elected officials other than the governor, Kentucky’s members of the U.S. House and Senate and Louisville’s mayor.

Kentucky House Speaker David Osborne, a Prospect Republican, said each state legislator is given the opportunity to buy a box of six Derby seats. He sees no problem with the practice. “It’s the premier annual event in Kentucky and people expect state leaders to be there,” Osborne said. “… A more common reaction I get from people is that they are surprised to learn that we have to buy the tickets.”

Sen. Mitch McConnell is raking in less money for his reelection campaign than at this time four years ago. But he is sitting on a comfy $8 million cushion. (Getty Images)

Jeff Yass, the Pennsylvania billionaire and major investor in the parent company of TikTok, contributed $8 million last month to a super PAC affiliated with U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky.

The super PAC is called Protect Freedom PAC, and a report it filed with the FEC on Wednesday says Yass gave the $8 million on March 31.

Yass has bankrolled Protect Freedom since it was created in 2017 by former Paul campaign operatives to support conservative candidates across the country. (The recent $8 million brings to about $30 million the total that Yass has given to Protect Freedom, about 80% of all receipts during the lifetime of Protect Freedom.)

Yass, like Paul, espouses a libertarian style of conservatism. And, besides Protect Freedom, the primary beneficiaries of his past political donations have been the big anti-tax PAC Club for Growth and super PACs that support Yass’ favorite cause of school choice. Kentuckians will be voting in November on an amendment ending the state Constitution’s ban on spending public money on nonpublic schools, potentially paving the way for charter schools and private school vouchers.

On Wednesday Bloomberg first reported the $8 million contribution to Protect Freedom in a story that noted that Yass’ political contributions are getting close scrutiny now because Yass holds a 15% stake in TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance as Congress debates whether TikTok should be banned in the United States.

And since that debate began about a year ago, Yass made his first contributions to Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to the U.S. House. FEC records show Yass gave $10 million in the last half of 2023 to Congressional Leadership Fund. He also is the biggest donor to a political committee of U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson — contributing $250,000 to Johnson Leadership Fund in December.

During his last year in office, former-President Donald Trump tried to ban TikTok unless it was sold to a U.S. owner, saying that data collected by TikTok threatened to give the Chinese Communist Party access to “personal and proprietary” information about Americans.

But Trump reversed his position in March and now opposes banning TikTok. His reversal came just days after a meeting with Yass. Trump has since said in an interview with MSNBC that he and Yass did not discuss TikTok during their meeting.

Kentucky Lantern emailed questions about the recent $8 million donation Thursday morning to Protect Freedom PAC and to the Pennsylvania trading firm headed by Yass, Susquehanna International Group. Neither immediately replied.

Bloomberg lists Yass as the 32nd wealthiest person in the world, worth $41 billion. He is also the largest political donor in the United States, according to the website Open Secrets which in February reported Yass made $46.7 million in political donations during the 2023-24 election cycle. The March 31 contribution would raise that total to $54.7 million.

Protect Freedom was founded in 2017 by former members of Rand Paul’s campaigns. Its website prominently displays a photo of Paul and says it exists for “the purpose of supporting pro-freedom and liberty-minded candidates.”

It has run independent advertising campaigns supporting candidates for the U.S. House and Senate across the country. And last year it spent at least $2.4 million on promoting the election of Republican Daniel Cameron as Kentucky governor, according to records filed with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. Cameron lost that race to Democratic incumbent Gov. Andy Beshear.

More recently, Protect Freedom donated $500,000 in February to an Ohio super PAC called Buckeye Values that ran a campaign to support Bernie Moreno in the recent Republican primary for the U.S. Senate in Ohio. Buckeye Values sponsored a rally for Moreno attended by Trump’s three days before the election. Moreno won that primary over two candidates backed by Ohio’s establishment Republicans.

And Protect Freedom’s recent report filed with the FEC shows that in March it spent about $181,000 to promote three conservative Republican candidates that have publicly been endorsed by Rand Paul: Cameron Hamilton, of Virginia; Stewart Jones, of South Carolina; and Rick Becker, of North Dakota.

Protect Freedom’s recent report to the FEC shows that as of March 31 (after the $8 million contribution from Yass) it has a cash balance of about $10 million.

The director of the Republican National Committee’s department for “election integrity” spoke at an online meeting hosted by two Florida activists who are close allies of the pillow entrepreneur and leading election-conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, pictured above. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

As the Republican National Committee ramps up plans to monitor the polls for illegal voting this fall, the national party is increasingly working with a loose network of anti-fraud extremists who have been found to routinely spread election lies.

The extremists also have close ties to the prominent far-right conspiracy theorists who tried to overturn the 2020 results of the presidential election.

The director of the Republican National Committee’s department for “election integrity” — tighter voting rules that prioritize anti-fraud measures over access — spoke at an April 4 online meeting hosted by two Florida activists who are close allies of the pillow entrepreneur and leading election-conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell.

States Newsroom attended the meeting, and video of it was posted online by the organizers.

It was just one of several recent episodes in which top RNC staff have reached out to large-scale purveyors of election falsehoods or right-wing extremists as the party recruits volunteers to guard the vote.

Election officials and election administration experts have repeatedly said there is no evidence of large-scale fraud or illegal voting in the 2020 election. Hundreds of lawsuits intended to uncover significant fraud have found very little.

The GOP’s growing outreach to these groups serves as the latest warning about the threat to this fall’s vote that could still be posed by the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen, election experts say.

“It’s one thing when fringe conspiracy theorists spread lies about elections,” said David Becker, an election administration expert who founded and runs the Center for Election Innovation and Research. “But it’s particularly disappointing to see a major political party give a platform to extremists whose testimony and statements have been found time and again to be false, and non-credible by the courts.”

“On the issue of democracy, today’s Republican Party is more irresponsible and more dangerous than it was in 2020,” said Marc Elias, a top Democratic election lawyer, in a statement that blasted the GOP’s effort to “court and nurture a network of right-wing election vigilantes.”

A spokesperson for the RNC did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Recruiting volunteer voting monitors

At the April 4 meeting, RNC election integrity director Christina Norton laid out the party’s plan to closely monitor the voting process, especially in swing states. Norton explained how the volunteers in attendance, eager to root out voter fraud, could get involved.

“We don’t see this program as being siloed or separate,” said Norton, a former deputy director of the Republican National Lawyers Association and a veteran of Florida GOP politics. “This is a full partnership with the grassroots and the local activists on the ground.”

Soon after, Seth Keshel, a retired U.S. Army intelligence officer, began his own presentation, stressing that Republicans would face a challenge to overcome what he said is mass Democratic fraud in states across the country.

Based on his own “quick count” done before the call, Keshel said, five key counties in North Carolina saw a total of 150,000 fraudulent votes in the 2020 election.

There’s also “big-time abuse” in Madison, Wisconsin, said Keshel, who has made frequent presentations across the country, using comparisons of vote totals in past elections to falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

Milwaukee, too, has a “big-time ballot harvesting scene,” he said.

As for Arizona, Keshel declared, the state’s two largest counties are “where the cheating is going on,” though Democrats are also “stuffing margins in the event of a close race” in other parts of the state.

“The corruption of elections is based on the corruption of voter rolls, and everything springs forward from that,” Keshel said.

Neither Norton nor anyone else on the call, which organizers said reached its Zoom capacity of 500 attendees, with around 1000 more watching a livestream, objected to Keshel’s claims, for which he provided no evidence.

Jessica Marsden, a counsel at Protect Democracy, a democracy advocacy group, said it’s become common for anti-fraud activists to style themselves as data experts, and to use scraps of information to build complex conspiracy theories.

“There’s this common thread of almost pseudo-science,” said Marsden. “These fraud theories have been totally debunked, but the aura of expertise that they bring to the effort seems to be seductive to some of these audiences.”

Claims about immigrants

To promote the April 4 meeting in advance, its two hosts, Steve Stern and Raj Doraisamy, used what have been found to be lies about the threat of voting by undocumented immigrants.

In a March 26 appearance on “War Room,” the popular podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, who served as a Trump White House adviser, Stern promised:? “We have so many illegal aliens in this country. They want to vote. We gotta stop them. We’re gonna tell you on April 4th how to do this.”

Bannon urged listeners to join the call, telling Stern: “You’re the best.”

A mass April 3 email sent by Doraisamy included a screenshot of a viral post on X charging that “8 million illegal aliens have invaded America under Biden,” and falsely suggesting that they’re being deliberately allowed in so that they can illegally vote for Democrats.

Thanks to this scheme, “the risk of Trump losing is now higher than ever,” Doraisamy wrote, urging readers to attend the meeting.

In fact, the claim in the post, which was also promoted by X owner Elon Musk to his over 180 million followers, is riddled with flaws, as the progressive journalist Judd Legum has shown.

Politifact has rated the claim that 8 million undocumented people have entered the country during the Biden presidency “mostly false.”

RNC courts fringe

In addition to filing a slew of lawsuits aimed at restricting voting, the RNC is planning a ground operation of volunteers to aggressively monitor the voting process.

A Trump campaign spokesperson promised in a TV appearance last month that there would be “soldiers — poll watchers, on the ground, who are making sure that there are no irregularities and fraud like we saw in the last election cycle.”?

Meanwhile, a leadership change has increased Trump’s control over the national party.

In late February, Ronna McDaniel, whom Trump backers had criticized as out of touch with the grassroots, stepped down as chair. She was replaced by Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law, and Michael Whatley, the former chair of the North Carolina GOP, who has emphasized the election integrity issue.

In an April 7 interview, Whatley avoided answering whether the 2020 election had been stolen.

Speaking on Fox News in March, Lara Trump pledged that the election integrity department would receive “massive resources.”

In recent weeks, the RNC has been at pains to show conservative activists — including those who have played key roles in spreading election lies — that it needs their help.

Gates McGavick, a senior adviser to Whatley and the RNC’s top spokesperson on election integrity issues, joined Stern’s podcast last month.

“We want to have open communication with the grassroots. We want to be providing as many resources as we possibly can to the grassroots,” McGavick told Stern. “Our election integrity department is a huge part of how we do that.”

And Christina Bobb, a former Trump lawyer who played a role in the Trump campaign’s “fake elector” scheme and was recently hired as a top RNC attorney, spoke with the far-right podcaster Breanna Morello last month. ?

“The most important aspect of election integrity from the RNC is empowering the grassroots to do what the grassroots does,” Bobb told Morello.

Bobb also joined a conference call last month with several Trump-allied groups that have spread lies about 2020, the Guardian reported.

The RNC appears not to have publicized any of these meetings, including the April 4 event with Norton, on its social media accounts or its website.

But for activists like Stern, who were used to being kept at arm’s length by the national party, the RNC’s new approach is a godsend.

“I think the RNC is the most important thing here,” Stern told Bannon as he previewed the April 4 meeting. “We’ve never been able to do this with Ronna McDaniel. But they’re coming to us now because they realize the grassroots are the important people in this country, that are going to save this country.”

Ties to conspiracy theorists

The April 4 meeting’s two organizers, Stern and Doraisamy, both have close ties to Lindell, as do several of the other speakers, who have been key spreaders of baseless claims about mass voter fraud.

Lindell spoke at a March 11 event Stern organized, video of which was posted online, to raise money and recruit conservative activists, held at Trump International Golf Club. “There is no more important patriot in this United States than Mike Lindell,” Stern declared as he introduced the conspiracy theorist.

Doraisamy was outside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune has reported, and went on to found a group, Defend Florida, that went door to door to gather thousands of “affidavits” from Floridians in an effort to show that the state’s 2020 election was corrupted by massive fraud. Election officials have said there’s no evidence for that.

At a 2022 event celebrating the signing into law of a controversial state measure creating an election crimes unit, which Defend Florida said was spurred by their work, Doraisamy thanked Lindell for his help with transportation for the door-to-door effort.

“We could not have been able to do that without your help,” Doraisamy said.

A 2021 Defend Florida rally included numerous Proud Boys, the self-described “western chauvinist” group that played a key role in the events of Jan. 6, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported.

Grassroots activists spread fraud claims

Another speaker on the April 4 call, Linda Szynkowicz, the Connecticut-based founder of FightVoterFraud.org, claimed recently on Stern’s podcast that her team has gathered evidence of election violations committed by over 40,000 people across the country. “Most of them are class D felonies,” she added.

In Connecticut alone, Szynkowicz said, her group has found around 11,000 people that potentially can be proven to have violated election laws. She provided no evidence for the claim

“I always have to say ‘potentially’ because I’m not law enforcement,” Szynkowicz added. “But we know we got ‘em.”

Also given a speaking spot at the April 4 meeting was Linda Rantz, who runs the Missouri chapter of Cause of America, a group that Lindell founded with the goal of getting rid of voting machines.

Another speaker, Jay Valentine, used initial funding from Lindell, the Texas Tribune has reported, to create voter data monitoring software.

According to documents obtained by the progressive group American Oversight, Valentine has worked closely with Trump lawyer Sidney Powell, a key figure in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, to convince lawmakers in Wisconsin and other states to use his “fractal programming technology” to uncover mass fraud.

“Voter fraud is a nationwide crime perpetrated locally, mostly by Democrats,” Valentine has written separately, promoting the idea of a national election fraud database. “We cannot fight industrial, sovereign, large-scale, election fraud with reports, press releases, and webinars.”

Yet another April 4 speaker, Marly Hornik, founded New York Citizens Audit, which she has said conducted an “open-source audit” of the state’s voter registration database.

“We have found millions and millions of registrations that are clear violations of New York state election law,” Hornik said last year on The Lindell Report, a TV show and podcast started by Lindell. “The database is being manipulated. We have hard evidence of that.”

Last year, New York Citizens Audit received a cease and desist letter from the state attorney general, charging that the group’s volunteers “confronted voters across the state at their homes, falsely claimed to be Board of Elections officials, and falsely accused voters of committing felony voter fraud.”

To those working for a fair and peaceful election this year, it all adds up to a major concern.

“Lying about election fraud is dangerous, plain and simple,” said Marsden of Protect Democracy, noting the Jan. 6 insurrection, as well as threats leveled against election workers. “Having a major political party sign on to those lies and lend them credibility is reckless and heightens the risk of violence affecting voters and the election.”

Concern over illegal immigration and border security was Donald Trump’s central campaign issue when he won the presidency in 2016, and polls show it as the GOP’s most potent political weapon again in 2024. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

With polls showing unauthorized immigration as Republicans’ best issue for the fall, the GOP is looking to raise the alarm about voting by non-citizens and the undocumented.

On the November ballot in Kentucky

Although Kentucky law already excludes noncitizens from registering to vote, Kentuckians will get a chance to enshrine the prohibition in the state Constitution in November.

The Republican-controlled legislature has put two amendments on the ballot, which also will include all the state House and half the Senate seats, as well as U.S. Congress, local offices and the race for U.S. president.

One amendment would end the constitutional ban on spending public money on private schools, paving the way for the legislature to approve charter schools and vouchers.

The other would specify: “No person who is not a citizen of the United States shall be allowed to vote in this state.”

The legislature also passed a bill requiring the Administrative Office of the Courts to send a list of people who were excused from jury duty because they’re not U.S. citizens to the attorney general, the United States attorney and the State Board of Elections. It instructs the elections board to remove anyone on the list from the voter rolls within five days. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed the bill, citing another of its provisions.

Kentucky governors lack veto power over constitutional amendments, which require a three-fifths vote of the legislature.

The multi-pronged effort has been advanced in congressional legislation, public statements by top election officials and U.S. senators, plans produced by grassroots activists, and posts on X by former President Donald Trump and others.

Concern over illegal immigration and border security was Trump’s central campaign issue when he won the presidency in 2016, and polls show it as the GOP’s most potent political weapon again in 2024. A Feb. 27 Gallup poll found 28% of respondents saw it as the country’s most important issue, well ahead of any other topic.

At an April 2 rally in Michigan, Trump seized on the recent murder of a local woman, Ruby Garcia, who law enforcement has alleged was killed by her undocumented boyfriend.

“We threw him out of the country and crooked Joe Biden let him back in and let him stay and he viciously killed Ruby,” said Trump.

But the party is also using the issue to bolster its ongoing push to stoke fear about voter fraud and press for more restrictive voting rules. And it has often trafficked in false and misleading claims about voting by undocumented immigrants.

Voter fraud claims

Voting by non-citizens is extremely rare. That’s because, voting advocates say, non-citizens are especially careful not to do anything that might jeopardize their status in the country.

A voter fraud database run by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which covers several decades in which billions of votes have been cast across the country, contains 29 entries that mention non-citizens. In some of these, a non-citizen registered but did not vote.

Still, over the last few weeks, Republican secretaries of state from Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, and at least two U.S. Senate Republicans, were the latest to tout the issue.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger wrote in a March 12 op-ed that “leftist-activist allies” of President Joe Biden “want to open the gate to non-citizen voting.”

At issue is a lawsuit challenging a Georgia measure requiring people registering to vote to show documentary proof of citizenship.

The voting-rights advocates behind the suit say the requirement isn’t needed, and can present a barrier to registration for some voters, especially naturalized citizens, who may not have easy access to citizenship documents.

In the op-ed, Raffensperger, who famously resisted Trump’s pressure to collude in subverting Georgia’s 2020 election results, sought to conflate the issue of illegal voting by the undocumented with burgeoning efforts by a few Democratic-led cities, including Washington, D.C., to allow legal non-citizens to vote in local elections.

He has pushed for a constitutional amendment in Georgia that would bar local governments in the state from enfranchising non-citizens.

“Leftist activists have already shown that they want to change the laws that require voters to be U.S. citizens,” Raffensperger wrote. “A constitutional amendment would eliminate any possibility for future efforts to change those laws.”

Warning on DOJ program

Days earlier, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson sent a letter to the U.S. Justice Department, warning that a federal program aimed at making voter registration easier for people in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prison could lead to the registration not only of ineligible felons but also of the undocumented.

“Due to the Biden Administration’s border policies, millions of illegal aliens have not only been allowed into this country during the last three years, but they have also been allowed to stay. Many of these aliens have been in the custody of an agency of the Department of Justice including the Marshals,” Watson wrote in the letter, which his office provided to States Newsroom.

“Providing ineligible non-citizens with information on how to register to vote undoubtedly encourages them to illegally register to vote.”

The Justice Department program is part of the Biden administration’s response to the president’s sweeping 2021 executive order aimed at using federal government agencies to expand access to voter registration. Republicans have condemned the order as an improper attempt to use public resources to advance partisan political goals. There is no evidence the order has led to ineligible voters being added to the rolls.

Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, as well as Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., also sought to raise concerns about non-citizen voting in an exchange at a March 12 hearing of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. The two Alabama Republicans charged that the federal government has denied election officials the tools they need to verify citizenship.

“I think (verifying citizenship) is important, now more than ever, especially given what’s happening at the southern border,” said Allen, who was testifying before the panel.

At the same hearing, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, used his time to ask the witnesses if they agreed that only U.S. citizens should be able to vote in federal elections — something that’s already the law — and that people registering to vote should have to show proof of citizenship. Lee later sent out a clip of the exchange on X.?

Memo calls for proof of citizenship to register

Also last month, the conservative voting activist Cleta Mitchell, who played a key role in Trump’s bid to overturn the 2020 election, circulated a memo on “the threat of non-citizen voting in 2024.” The memo, posted online by a conservative advocacy group, called for a federal law requiring people to show proof of citizenship when registering, among other steps.

“There are myriad left-wing advocacy groups who register illegals to vote,” Mitchell wrote, a charge for which she did not provide evidence.

But the party’s efforts to tie together voting and immigration have been underway for longer in this election cycle. Last March, as States Newsroom reported, a group of prominent conservative election activists came together to promote what they called a national campaign to “protect voting at all levels of government as the exclusive right of citizens.”

Months later, congressional Republicans unveiled a sweeping elections bill, which aimed to capture the GOP’s top priorities in its push to tighten voting rules, and which contained a full section on stopping non-citizen voting.

Among other steps, the measure would give states more access to federal data on citizenship and make it easier for them to remove people flagged as non-citizens from the rolls. It also would penalize states where non-citizens can vote in local elections by cutting their share of federal election funding.

While Democrats control the Senate and White House, the bill has little chance of becoming law.

Legislation on non-citizen voting

Separately, in the current session of Congress alone, the House Administration Committee has passed seven different bills addressing non-citizen voting.

Last year, the House voted to use Congress’ authority over the District of Columbia to overturn D.C.’s law enfranchising non-citizens — the first time the House had voted to overturn a District bill since 2015. The Senate didn’t take up the bill.

One Republican lawmaker introduced a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to ban non-citizen voting.

Legal non-citizen voting has a long history in the U.S. In the middle of the 19th century, at least 16 states passed measures enfranchising non-citizens, often to lure workers to underpopulated western states.

These laws were gradually repealed in the late 19th and early 20th century — a period when a more general anxiety about mass voting led to Jim Crow laws in the South and laws restricting voting by Catholic and Jewish immigrants in the north.

Some prominent figures have falsely suggested that Democrats are soft-pedaling border security so they can benefit from the votes of the undocumented.

“That’s why they are allowing these people to come in — people that don’t speak our language — they are signing them up to vote,” Trump said at a January rally in Iowa. “And I believe that’s why you are having millions of people pour into our country and it could very well affect the next election. That’s why they are doing it.”

Elon Musk, the billionaire tech entrepreneur, has taken a similar view.

“Dems won’t deport, because every illegal is a highly likely vote at some point,” Musk told his over 170 million followers in a Feb. 26 post on X, which he owns, commenting on news that an undocumented immigrant hadn’t been deported despite a string of arrests. “That simple incentive explains what seems to be insane behavior.”

U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, charged in a 2022 TV ad: “Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.”

Kansas law

One figure who may have done more than any to promote the threat of voting by non-citizens is Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. As the state’s secretary of state, Kobach pushed for a law requiring voter registrants to provide proof of citizenship.

The law was ultimately struck down by a federal court, which found “no credible evidence” that a significant number of non-citizens had registered to vote before it was implemented. The law was responsible for keeping tens of thousands of voter registration applications in limbo during an election.

Kobach went on to chair a voter fraud commission created in 2017 by the Trump White House, which pushed for a federal law similar to the Kansas law. The panel disbanded the following year without providing evidence of widespread voter fraud.

(McKenna Horsley)

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear vetoed a bill that received a late addition to outlaw ranked-choice voting in Kentucky.?

However, Beshear singled out another provision in House Bill 44 as the reason for the veto. That provision requires the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to annually furnish “lifetime Kentucky death records” to help the State Board of Elections clean up voter registration rolls.

In his veto message, Beshear said “lifetime death records is not a real term used or understood by the Department of Vital Statistics, so such records cannot be supplied. Instead, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services already provides the State Board of Elections with monthly death records. Therefore, House Bill 44 is not necessary, as the existing policy already provides more information than the legislation.”

The bill also requires the Administrative Office of the Courts to send a list of people who were excused from jury duty because they’re not U.S. citizens to the attorney general, the United States attorney of the appropriate jurisdiction and the State Board of Elections. The bill instructs the elections board to remove anyone on the list from the voter rolls within five days. Another provision prohibits the state from entering into any agreements that would require it to make efforts to register people to vote.

The bill’s primary sponsor Rep. John Hodgson, R-Fisherville, responded to the governor’s veto on social media by saying that the secretary of state’s office and the State Board of Elections had implemented a similar process as an experiment last year. Hodgson vowed that lawmakers would “gladly override this silly veto” when they return next week.

Ranked-choice voting allows voters to rank multiple candidates for an office based on their preference rather than selecting one candidate. The method has gained popularity across the country as a way to combat polarizing politics.?

Maine became the first state to adopt the method in 2016. Alaska uses a system that pairs ranked-choice voting with a “Final Five” system, where multiple candidates advance out of a primary election to the general election regardless of party affiliation.?

The Senate adopted a committee substitute of the House bill that would outlaw ranked-choice voting, and the House concurred.?

“Any existing or future ordinance enacted or adopted by a county, municipality, or any other local governmental entity which conflicts with this section shall be void,” the bill says.?

However, several lawmakers objected that it was too early for Kentucky to ban ranked-choice voting.

?Before she voted against concurring with the Senate changes last week, Rep. Rachel Roarx, D-Louisville, said the ranked-choice method allows voters to consider candidates “more closely” based on their preferences and the House should consider further debate before ruling it out.

“How many times has someone told you, ‘Well, I would like an independent candidate, but they won’t get enough votes to actually enter into winning based on how people are registered and where their preferences lie?’” she said. “Now, I’m not saying that it’s right or wrong or anything, I’m just saying that our constituents should have the ability to express those concerns to us, and that is the debate that we should have.”

In the Senate the day before, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, voted in favor of the measure, but said he objected to the ranked-choice voting provision and argued it “is not something that’s been used in enough jurisdictions yet to identify whether or not it might actually be better.” This is his last session in the Senate, as he is not seeking reelection, but he said he had been working on a bill to pilot ranked-choice voting in Kentucky and did not file it.?

“I think prohibiting it before we have a chance to see how those pilots in different places around the country works is premature,” Westerfield said. “It’s my hope that if it turns out that tends to be a good way to elect people, the state of Kentucky would consider that down the road and it would undo and repeal this particular part of the bill.”

However, not everyone is open to the idea of ranked-choice voting in Kentucky. Sen. Phillip Wheeler, R-Pikeville, said before voting in favor of the bill he was “glad we’re banning” the process.

“Election Day is there for a reason and winners are chosen on Election Day. You vote for the candidate and the candidate with the most votes should win. We shouldn’t be picking a second, third or fourth option. That is the process and that’s the way the process has always been done. that’s the way the process needs to stay.”

Republicans have an overwhelming supermajority in Kentucky’s General Assembly, meaning they can easily override Beshear’s veto.?

The sign outside the Frankfort headquarters of the Republican Party of Kentucky. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Tom Loftus)

FRANKFORT — Churchill Downs contributed $100,000 and The Jockey Club gave $50,000 earlier this year to the Republican Party of Kentucky’s fund drive to renovate and expand its party headquarters in Frankfort.

The two recent contributions are listed in a report that the RPK’s Building Fund filed this week with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.?

Counting the two recent contributions, the fund drive has raised $2.9 million from 12 special interest donors since fundraising began in late 2022. The largest of the contributions was $1 million given by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. in late 2022.

Churchill Downs Inc., best known for its Louisville racetrack, is a publicly traded company that owns and operates gambling venues across the country.?The Jockey Club, established in 1894, promotes Thoroughbred racing and breeding? and maintains the North American Thoroughbred registry.

State and federal campaign finance laws limit to $15,000 the amount any person can give to either political party executive committee, and corporation contributions are forbidden. But a law passed by the 2017 Kentucky General Assembly allowed each party to create a building fund which can accept contributions of unlimited amounts from people or corporations.

In response to a question about the large special interest contributions from special interests, RPK Executive Director Sarah Van Wallaghen released a statement that said the building fund fundraising effort complies with “both federal and state law.” She also said money given to the building fund can only be used for construction and maintenance of the headquarters and can not be used for candidate or issue advocacy.

The RPK’s headquarters is in a house on Capital Avenue about four blocks from the Kentucky Capitol. A sign identifies it as the “Mitch McConnell Building,” named for Kentucky’s longest serving U.S. senator, Republican Mitch McConnell, who also is the longest serving party leader in Senate history and famous for his success in raising money for his and others’ campaigns.

The report filed this week indicates that design work for the project is underway. The report lists $61,587 in expenses paid this year to Stengel-Hill Architecture Inc., of Louisville, for architectural fees and a survey.

Van Wallaghen said the party hopes to have drawings completed for the proposed new headquarters within the next two months and for construction to begin before the end of the year.

The building fund’s recent report also lists $10,000 in payments to Haney Consulting, the company of McConnell’s longtime chief fundraiser Laura Haney. These payments bring to $85,000 the amount the building fund has paid to Haney Consulting for its help in generating the 12 contributions.

The Kentucky Democratic Party’s building fund this week reported minimal activity during the first quarter of 2024 — less than $1,000 in expenses and less than $1,000 in receipts. However, it did report a balance of $327,578 in cash on hand as of March 31.

Here’s a complete list of the donors to the Republican Party of Kentucky Building Fund’s project to renovate and expand the Mitch McConnell Building:

The AI threat has emerged at a time when democracy advocates already are deeply concerned about the potential for “ordinary” online disinformation to confuse voters. (Getty Images)

This year’s presidential election will be the first since generative AI — a form of artificial intelligence that can create new content, including images, audio, and video — became widely available. That’s raising fears that millions of voters could be deceived by a barrage of political deepfakes.

But, while Congress has done little to address the issue, states are moving aggressively to respond — though questions remain about how effective any new measures to combat AI-created disinformation will be.

Last year, a fake, AI-generated audio recording of a conversation between a liberal Slovakian politician and a journalist, in which they discussed how to rig the country’s upcoming election, offered a warning to democracies around the world.

Here in the United States, the urgency of the AI threat was driven home in February, when, in the days before the New Hampshire primary, thousands of voters in the state received a robocall with an AI-generated voice impersonating President Joe Biden, urging them not to vote. A Democratic operative working for a rival candidate has admitted to commissioning the calls.

In response to the call, the Federal Communications Commission issued a ruling restricting robocalls that contain AI-generated voices.

Some conservative groups even appear to be using AI tools to assist with mass voter registration challenges — raising concerns that the technology could be harnessed to help existing voter suppression schemes.?

“Instead of voters looking to trusted sources of information about elections, including their state or county board of elections, AI-generated content can grab the voters’ attention,” said Megan Bellamy, vice president for law and policy at the Voting Rights Lab, an advocacy group that tracks election-related state legislation. “And this can lead to chaos and confusion leading up to and even after Election Day.”

Disinformation worries

The AI threat has emerged at a time when democracy advocates already are deeply concerned about the potential for “ordinary” online disinformation to confuse voters, and when allies of former president Donald Trump appear to be having success in fighting off efforts to curb disinformation.

But states are responding to the AI threat. Since the start of last year, 101 bills addressing AI and election disinformation have been introduced, according to a March 26 analysis by the Voting Rights Lab.

On March 27, Oregon became the latest state — after Wisconsin, New Mexico, Indiana and Utah — to enact a law on AI-generated election disinformation. Florida and Idaho lawmakers have passed their own measures, which are currently on the desks of those states’ governors.

Arizona, Georgia, Iowa and Hawaii, meanwhile, have all passed at least one bill — in the case of Arizona, two — through one chamber.

As that list of states makes clear, red, blue, and purple states all have devoted attention to the issue.

States urged to act

Meanwhile, a new report on how to combat the AI threat to elections, drawing on input from four Democratic secretaries of state, was released March 25 by the NewDEAL Forum, a progressive advocacy group.

“(G)enerative AI has the ability to drastically increase the spread of election mis- and disinformation and cause confusion among voters,” the report warned. “For instance, ‘deepfakes’ (AI-generated images, voices, or videos) could be used to portray a candidate saying or doing things that never happened.”

The NewDEAL Forum report urges states to take several steps to respond to the threat, including requiring that certain kinds of AI-generated campaign material be clearly labeled; conducting role-playing exercises to help anticipate the problems that AI could cause; creating rapid-response systems for communicating with voters and the media, in order to knock down AI-generated disinformation; and educating the public ahead of time.

Secretaries of State Steve Simon of Minnesota, Jocelyn Benson of Michigan, Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico and Adrian Fontes of Arizona provided input for the report. All four are actively working to prepare their states on the issue.

Loopholes seen

Despite the flurry of activity by lawmakers, officials, and outside experts, several of the measures examined in the Voting Rights Lab analysis appear to have weaknesses or loopholes that may raise questions about their ability to effectively protect voters from AI.

Most of the bills require that creators add a disclaimer to any AI-generated content, noting the use of AI, as the NewDEAL Forum report recommends.

But the new Wisconsin law, for instance, requires the disclaimer only for content created by campaigns, meaning deepfakes produced by outside groups but intended to influence an election — hardly an unlikely scenario — would be unaffected.

In addition, the measure is limited to content produced by generative AI, even though experts say other types of synthetic content that don’t use AI, like Photoshop and CGI — sometimes referred to as “cheap fakes” — can be just as effective at fooling viewers or listeners, and can be more easily produced.

For that reason, the NewDEAL Forum report recommends that state laws cover all synthetic content, not just that which use AI.

The Wisconsin, Utah, and Indiana laws also contain no criminal penalties — violations are punishable by a $1000 fine — raising questions about whether they will work as a deterrent.

The Arizona and Florida bills do include criminal penalties. But Arizona’s two bills apply only to digital impersonation of a candidate, meaning plenty of other forms of AI-generated deception — impersonating a news anchor reporting a story, for instance — would remain legal.

And one of the Arizona bills, as well as New Mexico’s law, applied only in the 90 days before an election, even though AI-generated content that appears before that window could potentially still affect the vote.

Experts say the shortcomings exist in large part because, since the threat is so new, states don’t yet have a clear sense of exactly what form it will take.

“The legislative bodies are trying to figure out the best approach, and they’re working off of examples that they’ve already seen,” said Bellamy, pointing to the examples of the Slovakian audio and the Biden robocalls.

“They’re just not sure what direction this is coming from, but feeling the need to do something.”

“I think that we will see the solutions evolve,” Bellamy added. “The danger of that is that AI-generated content and what it can do is also likely to evolve at the same time. So hopefully we can keep up.”

Michael Abate, attorney for the Kentucky Press Association, talks to media about an open records bill that he said is not good. A committee substitute would have been much worse, he said. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)

FRANKFORT — In a rare change of mind, a Senate committee rejected a measure that open government advocates warned would dismantle Kentucky’s open records law.?

An attorney for the Kentucky Press Association says the bill still has loopholes that would let government officials hide public records by keeping them on their private electronic devices.?

The Senate State and Local Government Committee on Wednesday approved a version of House Bill 509 that came out of the House earlier this session by a 6-3 vote with one pass.?

Members had initially adopted a committee substitute bill that Michael Abate, KPA’s attorney, said would exempt a swath of public officials from Kentucky’s open records law.

Members chose to un-adopt that version in a voice vote after hearing testimony. The committee substitute that was ultimately rejected was not on the Legislative Research Commission’s website as of Wednesday afternoon.?

Abate told the committee that the last-minute substitute would have removed “every state or local government officer” from the definition of a “public agency” — which would have exempted many public officials, including the governor, constitutional officers, mayors, city council members, school board members and more, from complying with the open records law.

“If we delete them from the definition of a ‘public agency,’ their records are not subject to inspection or to the open records law,” Abate said.?

Bill sponsor Rep. John Hodgson, R-Fisherville, disagreed, saying the definition of a “public agency” had “nothing to do with the definition of ‘open records.’”?

“I don’t know why the language was written this way in the ’70s,” he said.?

As it stands, House Bill 509 would require public agencies to furnish officials such as board members or employees with an email account on which to discuss public business. The agency could discipline employees who violate the requirement, but the bill doesn’t recommend a consequence.?

Additionally, the bill does not require public agencies to search private devices for public records, just devices or email accounts owned by the agency.?

Sen. Gex Williams, R-Verona, voted against the bill after raising concerns about the legislation not addressing public records created in text messages or other mobile app messages. He recalled being in the legislature when open records laws were amended in the wake of the Operation BOPTROT scandal. At the time, lawmakers, lobbyists and other public figures were convicted or faced trial on charges of bribery, extortion, fraud and racketeering.

“I congratulate the representative and everybody here for trying to address the problem of privacy versus our governmental records,” Williams said. “There’s an issue there that absolutely positively needs to be addressed, but we haven’t addressed it in a way that really accommodates the necessity for open records — government records — to be available to citizens.”

Williams said lawmakers should address this during the interim session. The other senators who voted no were Louisville Democratic Sens. Cassie Chambers Armstrong and Denise Harper Angel.?

A few opponents addressed the committee, including Abate and speakers from the League of Women Voters and Americans for Prosperity.?

Liam Gallagher, the legislative director for conservative group Americans for Prosperity, told the committee that “the fact that we are here with the Kentucky Press Association should raise alarm bells.” He expressed concerns with the committee substitute that was eventually un-adopted, calling it a “specious attempt” to strengthen open records laws in Kentucky.?

“It would likely lead to less transparency, and possibly open the door to evasion of records management and records disclosure obligations,” Gallagher said of the committee substitute.

He added that the group was “not thrilled” with the House version, but “will not try and stand in opposition to it.”?

While explaining his yes vote, Sen. Greg Elkins, R-Winchester, said that while he believes there may be some work to do on the bill, he liked that it “instructs public agencies to create a means of communication … that is open and subject to open records requests.”?

As of Wednesday morning, the bill had two readings in the Senate, making it eligible for a floor vote that afternoon.?

After the meeting, Hodgson told reporters that he was unaware of any incident in which a public official’s personal emails or texts were publicly released because of an open records request He said his legislation is “proactive.” He also said that there are “always unintended consequences” with legislation and that he believes in the open records process.?

“There is some kind of a … faultline we’re coming to here where the public’s right to know bumps up against an individual’s right to privacy,” Hodgson said. “There’s a dark side of open records requests where people can use them punitively. They can use them against personal enemies, against political enemies. There’s no limitation on how many open records requests somebody can file and you have five days to respond.”

After the committee hearing, Abate told reporters the bill “could have been much, much worse” considering what had earlier been proposed and temporarily adopted by the committee. He also raised concerns that the committee substitute was not publicly available ahead of the meeting. He said he received a copy around 9 p.m. the day before.?

“This is an example of what happens when you have a really important law, like the open records law, and people are trying to make backroom deals to change it in secret and not airing it,” Abate said. “You had testimony that this wasn’t intended to change anything, and I’m here to tell you it would have radically changed everything. This process is broken, and it shouldn’t be carried out with last-minute committee subs that never see the light of day before the committee voted to approve it.”

He added that he has seen a committee vote to not adopt a substitute once before. That bill also would have “gutted public transparency.”?

Russell Coleman walks to the stage in Louisville to give his acceptance speech after wining the office of attorney general on Nov 7, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Matthew Mueller)

Follow the money

An occasional series of campaign finance notebooks by Tom Loftus

The largest donor to the various political committees supporting Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman last year is a newcomer to Kentucky’s world of political giving and lobbying: FFF Enterprises Inc., of Temecula, California.

FFF Enterprises describes itself on its website as a “leading supplier of critical-care biopharmaceuticals, plasma products and vaccines.” It first registered to lobby the legislative and executive branches of Kentucky state government last Sept. 1.

Reports filed with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance show that FFF’s chief executive Patrick Schmidt gave $2,000 to Coleman’s 2023 primary election committee and $2,100 to his general election committee. Other reports filed with KREF show that Schmidt gave $20,000 last year to Safer Kentucky, a super PAC supporting Coleman, and $25,000 after the election to the committee that paid for Coleman’s inauguration festivities.

The $25,000 was by far the largest contribution made to Coleman’s inaugural committee, which raised a total of $59,100.

In addition, FFF Enterprises Inc. made a corporate donation of $75,000 last Nov. 8 to the Republican Attorneys General Association, according to a report that the association filed with the IRS. That contribution came a day after the election in which the Republican Attorneys General Association spent $530,435 supporting Coleman’s candidacy.

Coleman won 58 percent of the vote in the election over Democrat Pamela Stevenson, a state House member from Louisville.

Coleman’s office referred questions about the FFF contributions to his campaign committee, which did not respond to an email from Kentucky Lantern.

FFF Enterprises reports on forms filed with the Legislative Ethics Commission that it is lobbying on “issues impacting addiction.” Its chief lobbyist in Kentucky is Karen Kelly, who is also the secretary of the Republican Party of Kentucky and a former district director for U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers. Kelly referred questions to Schmidt who did not return a phone message left at his office.?

FFF’s website says that it “purchases directly from biopharmaceutical manufacturers and ships only to healthcare providers. … FFF’s unprecedented programs unite manufacturers, Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs) and hospital partners, while bringing streamlined cost-saving solutions to the biopharmaceutical and vaccine marketplace.”

Rand Paul/Jeff Yass PAC gives big to winner?in Ohio GOP primary

Protect Freedom PAC — a super PAC that has supported Sen. Rand Paul and is mainly funded by mega-donor Jeff Yass — made a big contribution to support the Donald Trump-backed candidate who won a hotly-contested GOP primary for U.S. Senate in Ohio on Tuesday.

Protect Freedom recently reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) that it gave $500,000 on Feb. 13 to Buckeye Values PAC, which backed? Bernie Moreno, a former car dealer who has never held elective office. On Saturday former President Trump spoke at a raucous rally for Moreno near Dayton. The Associated Press reported that the rally was hosted by Buckeye Values PAC.

Reports filed by Buckeye Values PAC with the FEC show that Protect Freedom PAC was by far its largest donor this year, giving more than one-third of its $1.4 million received in contributions.

Moreno faced two opponents Tuesday: Matt Dolan, a state senator who had the support of establishment Republican leaders in Ohio like Republican Gov. Mike DeWine and former Ohio Sen. Rob Portman; and Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

Moreno won just over 50% of the vote with 33% going to Dolan and 17% to LaRose, according to the Ohio secretary of state’s website.

Moreno will face incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in November.

Protect Freedom PAC is a super PAC created in 2017 by close associates of Rand Paul to support candidates across the country who share Paul’s conservative political views. Last year Protect Freedom PAC spent more than $2.4 million in an unsuccessful effort to help elect Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron as governor of Kentucky.

Super PACs like Protect Freedom PAC can accept contributions in unlimited amounts. Last year it was almost exclusively funded by $6 million in contributions from Jeff Yass, a billionaire options trader from the Philadelphia area. Yass has contributed about $21 million to Protect Freedom PAC since it was founded. That’s more than 75 percent of all the money that has ever been given to Protect Freedom PAC.

Robert Stivers: All monied up, and no race to run

Amid the frantic fundraising by candidates for governor and other statewide offices last fall, Senate President Robert Stivers was doing some serious fundraising of his own.

The Manchester Republican, who has represented the Senate’s 25th District since 1997, raised more than $360,000 in September and October in preparation for a campaign for reelection in 2024, according to a report he filed in December with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.

Donors to Stivers included numerous officials of Churchill Downs, executives of other race track/sports betting parlors, highway contractors and more than 40 political action committees. Coal company executive and billionaire Joe Craft of Alliance Resource Partners gave $2,100 as did his wife, Kelly Craft, unsuccessful candidate for the Republican nomination for governor last year.

This allowed the Stivers campaign to report a cash balance of $361,408 in early December.

That’s huge for a state legislator, even a top leader. It is about triple the size of the next largest balance held by any of the other 15 leaders in the General Assembly, according to Kentucky Lantern’s look at those records. ?Senate President Pro Tem David Givens’ campaign fund balance is second highest at $121,057, registry records show. Stivers’ balance even exceeds the $340,000 balance of the Kentucky Senate Republican Caucus Committee.?

If Stivers’ intention was to scare off potential challengers, it worked. No one — Democrat or Republican — filed to oppose Stivers by the Jan. 5 filing deadline.

Stivers, through his office’s spokeswoman, declined to comment on the matter.

Stivers can save the money for a possible reelection campaign in 2028, but also can use it to spread good will and make friends by giving some to other political campaigns or civic causes, as well as cover various political expenses including meals.

Last year, Stivers’ campaign committee’s expenses included a $5,000 donation to the Republican Party of Kentucky, $5,000 to the Senate Republican Caucus Campaign Committee, donations of $200 to the campaigns of 13 Republicans running for the General Assembly, $200 to the Clay County Republican Women, $500 to a nonprofit called Shaping Clay, $250 to Oneida Tourism, $500 to the Burning Springs Elementary basketball team, $1,080 for “meals and advertising at Mcquary Co. Gala,” $201.65 for “Christmas hams for workers and supporters,” and $576.64 for “dinner at Jeff Ruby’s” for supporters.

A Kentucky State Police officer removed a protester who was part of a group shouting from the gallery as the House debated overriding Gov. Andy Beshear's veto of anti-trans Senate Bill 150, March 29, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Mariah Kendell)

FRANKFORT —?Kentuckians could be charged with a new crime — “interference with a legislative proceeding” — under a bill backed Wednesday by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee.

The committee’s Democrats passed their votes on House Bill 626.?

The bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. John Blanton, R-Salyersville, said the legislation was written with three scenarios in mind: when someone prevents lawmakers or staff from going between rooms, enters a legislative chamber and refuses to leave or engages in conduct that disrupts proceedings.?

“When you prevent a legislative body from doing its work, you’ve crossed a line,” Blanton told the committee.?

Sixteen Republicans on the committee voted yes, while four Democrats passed. Chairman of the committee, Rep. Daniel Elliot, R-Danville, said lawmakers have seen “efforts to interfere in the legislative proceedings” in Kentucky and nationally.?

“Obviously we want everyone who wants to express their views to do that in a peaceable, civil manner that’s allowed under the First Amendment … but we also have to have the ability to conduct the people’s business without interference in a way that prevents us from doing that,” Elliot said.?

Blanton’s legislation sparked a lot of questions on both sides of the aisle. Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, asked Blanton if anything in the bill could hold an organizer accountable for disruptive conduct during a protest, which he likened to legal efforts to hold former President Donald Trump accountable for the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.?

Blanton said his bill has “nothing to do with Mr. Trump” but it does include definitions for conspiracy and facilitating such activities.?

“Well, I think a lot of the recent protests here at the Capitol were organized by higher (groups), and it seems like they should be the ones being answered for this,” Bratcher said.?

Last year, as the House voted to override Gov. Andy Beshear’s veto on Senate Bill 150, 19 protestors in the gallery were arrested. They were opposing controversial anti-transgender legislation. The bill is now a law and ended gender-affirming care for minors and required local school boards to make policies keeping people from using bathrooms, locker rooms or showers that “are reserved for students of a different biological sex.”?

Rep. Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, asked Blanton if state troopers already had the authority to remove spectators from the gallery, as they had last year during the debates on Senate Bill 150. He replied that his bill “put it more plainly” and while the protestors had a right to be heard, they interrupted legislative proceedings.?

“It stifled our ability on the floor to be able to have debate, which is healthy as well, right? We got cut off and got shot right to a vote, and so it impeded our ability to do the work of our constituents for people who want to get up, regardless of what side of the issue they was on and have their voices heard,” he said. “So it stifles our voices to some degree.”?

Stevenson said while explaining her pass vote that she wanted to further review the constitutionality of the bill.

Michael Frazier and Rebecca Blankenship of the Kentucky Students Right Coalition told the committee that they had suggestions to avoid “constitutional vagueness” in the language of the legislation while protecting members of the General Assembly and preventing a heckler’s veto.?

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky voiced opposition to the bill in a statement to the Kentucky Lantern after the meeting.?

“The majority party currently has the power to pass any legislation they like, and rather than focusing on actual problems facing Kentuckians, they are passing laws to silence their constituents,” said Corey Shapiro, the ACLU of Kentucky legal director. “Worse, they are creating ANOTHER new crime, and creating a circumstance where people could be arrested for simply expressing their opinions to legislators.”

If enacted, the bill says a person would be guilty of the crime in the first degree if they act “with the intent to disrupt, impede, or prevent the General Assembly from conducting business” by engaging in, conspiring to engage in or facilitating others to participate in “disorderly or disruptive conduct in any legislative building and the conduct disrupts, impedes, or prevents the General Assembly from conducting business.”?

The first degree offense would be a Class A misdemeanor for the first time and a Class D felony on subsequent offenses.?

Additionally, the bill says that a person would be guilty of a second degree offense if they intentionally disrupt General Assembly business, such as entering or remaining inside a legislative chamber, gallery or another room in a legislative building or by impeding a legislator, a legislative officer or staff member from moving within a legislative building.?

The second degree offense would be a Class B misdemeanor for the first time and a Class A misdemeanor for subsequent offenses.

Former President Donald Trump, above, is backing Michael Whatley, the chair of the North Carolina GOP, to be the next Republican National Committee chair. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump’s choice to be the next chair of the national Republican Party briefly teamed up last election cycle with a voter fraud watchdog group closely tied to Cleta Mitchell, the conservative lawyer who played a key role in Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 vote.

Trump is backing Michael Whatley, the chair of the North Carolina GOP, to be the next Republican National Committee chair, the New York Times reported Feb. 6. Ronna McDaniel, who currently holds the post, has told Trump she will step down later this month, according to the Times.

Whatley, a veteran GOP campaign operative who served in the administration of President George W. Bush, is reported to have won Trump’s support because he backs Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen through widespread voter fraud. Last year, Trump endorsed Whatley, who is currently the RNC’s general counsel, to be the organization’s co-chair.

Whatley spoke at a 2022 conference aimed at rooting out voter fraud and organized by the North Carolina Election Integrity Team, the group’s founder, Jim Womack, told States Newsroom.

“We brought them to our summit,” said Womack. “I gave Whatley an opportunity to address our people, and he talked about how it was going to be a great team effort.”

Around that time, Whatley also let Womack briefly plug NCEIT on a conference call of county chairs, said Womack, who chairs the Lee County GOP.

NCEIT is a chapter of the Election Integrity Network, which Mitchell founded in 2021 to train poll watchers to aggressively hunt for fraud at the polls. Womack has called Mitchell “our mentor.”

Mitchell, who is based in North Carolina, was closely involved in Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election, including participating in the December 2020 phone call on which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” the votes he needed to win the state.

A special grand jury in Fulton County, Georgia recommended indicting Mitchell, but she was not charged.

The North Carolina Republican Party declined to comment about Whatley’s work with NCEIT.

Womack, who ran unsuccessfully against Whatley for state party chair in 2019, said that after Whatley’s appearance at the summit, the relationship fizzled, as Whatley kept NCEIT at arm’s length from the state party.

Womack said the party under Whatley discouraged Republican volunteers from getting involved with NCEIT.

“They were telling a lot of the counties, don’t use their reporting system, don’t go to their training, go to our training,” said Womack.

Indeed, Womack complained that Whatley hadn’t gone far enough in fighting against fraud.

Still, under Whatley, the state party in 2021 unveiled a 16-member “Election Integrity Committee” to push for tighter voting rules and recruit poll watchers.

At a conference that year hosted by the conservative group CPAC, Whatley suggested that if it wasn’t for the party’s election integrity legal work, Democrats would have stolen a 2020 election for state Supreme Court that was won by the Republican candidate by 401 votes.

“You can’t tell me in 100 North Carolina counties, they couldn’t have come up with four votes (in each) if I didn’t have lawyers and attorneys in every single one of those counties,” Whatley said.

“This is gonna have to be part of the Republican establishment going forward,” Whatley added, referring to intensified legal efforts. “This is going to be lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit.”

A growing share of Americans appears willing, in our ultra-polarized times, to put partisan or ideological loyalties ahead of democracy, a review of polls, focus groups and other analyses shows. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

With former President Donald Trump having all but wrapped up the GOP presidential nomination, one issue looks set to be at the center of the general election campaign: the threat to democracy.

In a major campaign speech in Pennsylvania in January, President Joe Biden detailed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, his efforts to use violence to hold on to power, and his promises of “revenge” and “retribution” against political enemies.

“Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past,” Biden declared. “It’s what he’s promising for the future.”

To combat the charge, Team Trump has sought to muddy the waters by claiming, without evidence, that in fact it’s the president who threatens democracy. Trump says the criminal indictments in four cases brought against him are the proof — though there’s no evidence that Biden influenced prosecutors in any of them. Trump also points to a case pending before the Supreme Court, in which Biden also has no involvement, that would rule Trump ineligible for the ballot.

“They’ve weaponized government, and he’s saying I’m a threat to democracy,” Trump said at an Iowa rally last month, accusing Biden of “pathetic fearmongering.”

All of which brings up a question: How do ordinary Americans regard democracy? Some people might assume that, though voters are deeply divided over just about everything, there is agreement on democracy as the way to resolve differences.

And yet, nearly half the electorate say they plan to vote for a candidate who already has gravely undermined democracy, and promises to do so again if reelected. Does that suggest Americans’ commitment to democracy — not just to holding elections, but to the norms that undergird liberal democracy, like the rule of law and an impartial justice system — isn’t as ironclad as we’d like to think?

Recently, a trove of information has emerged to shed light on the question. A series of polls, surveys, focus groups, and other analyses — many released since the start of the year — has aimed to gauge Americans’ views on democracy: how important it is, how well it’s working, and whether there are times when democratic values should be jettisoned.

The findings are varied and not easy to summarize, but a few themes stand out: Dissatisfaction with how democracy is performing is sky-high across the political spectrum. Large majorities say democracy is at risk. And, perhaps most importantly: A growing share of Americans appears willing, in our ultra-polarized times, to put partisan or ideological loyalties ahead of democracy.

“When you are living in a more polarized time, it is going to be more likely that people are going to find excuses for their principles to be pushed to the side, because in that moment their political identity is more important than almost any other identity,” said Joe Goldman, the president of the Democracy Fund, a pro-democracy advocacy organization, and a co-author of a long-term study released this month by the group on Americans’ views of democracy.

That’s a highly dangerous situation, democracy advocates say. A clear and cross-partisan pro-democracy consensus among the public could act as a crucial bulwark against the kind of authoritarian steps that Trump has said he’ll take if re-elected — and could make it harder for him to win in the first place. Without that consensus, the threat to democracy will continue to grow.

Questioning of democracy

Going back to the founding, there’s been a strain of thinking that distrusted democracy as a system that can lead to mob rule and tyranny.

“It’s pretty clear that our founders hated democracy,” said Michael Schudson, a professor at Columbia Journalism School, who has studied the history of American civic life. “They were trying to get away from it. Democracy was a form of government from the past that led to, essentially, anarchy.”

Even today, many leading conservatives insist on calling the U.S. not a democracy but a republic.

“By the way, the United States is not a democracy,” Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., now the House speaker, said in a 2019 church sermon. “Do you know what a democracy is? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. You don’t want to be in a democracy. Majority rule: not always a good thing.”

But there’s no question that recent years have seen a rise in the number of Americans who say democracy isn’t working well — or even who question it as a system and express support for alternatives.

A Jan. 10 analysis by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, which summarized results from seven high-quality recent polls, found broad agreement that “American democracy is not working.”

One typical poll included in the UVA analysis, released this month by Gallup, found just 28% of respondents, a new low, said they were satisfied with how democracy is functioning.

An overwhelming number of respondents to a PRRI survey from last year — 84% of Democrats, 77% of Republicans, and 73% of independents — said that U.S. democracy is at risk. And 2 out of 3 respondents to a Jan. 31 Quinnipiac poll said U.S. democracy is in danger of collapse.

Challenges for Democrats

A set of focus group conversations with mostly undecided voters in Georgia, Wisconsin and Nevada, conducted Jan. 24 by the progressive polling firm Navigator Research and viewed by States Newsroom, found similar views. But the focus groups also underscored the challenges that Democrats might have in convincing voters that Trump is to blame for democracy’s troubles.

Participants almost universally said, when asked, that U.S. democracy is not working well. One Nevada man described it as a corpse, an assessment that many other participants appeared to agree with.

But asked why, almost no one pointed to Trump and his lies about the 2020 election, his role in the violence of Jan. 6, or his promises to govern as an authoritarian. Many participants, instead, talked about feeling that their vote doesn’t matter because politicians on both sides ignore the views of regular people — concerns that existed long before the tumult of the Trump era.

“It’s self-interest on both sides,” said a Georgia woman. “From the lobbyists, from the politicians, to make it the way they want instead of the way we want.”

“Both sides are trying to say (democracy is under attack), but they’re trying to just point at the other side and make everyone believe it’s the other side,” said a Wisconsin man. “I tend to think it’s more about the entities that are in power just wanting to remain in power. And that’s the best way to do that, is to make sure that we think it is under attack, but from the other side.”

The Stony Brook University political scientist Stanley Feldman summed up the challenge in an interview with the New York Times.

“Voting to protect democracy isn’t as straightforward as it may seem. Democracy is an abstraction to many voters,” said Feldman. “To many Republicans, bringing criminal charges against Trump at this point looks like the Biden administration is trying to subvert democracy by getting rid of a candidate who can win in November.”

‘Preserving democracy’ still seems urgent

Still, at least in the abstract, people appear to value democracy and to see preserving it as important.

When the Quinnipiac poll asked people to choose which of 10 issues was the most urgent, the top choice, at 24%, was “preserving democracy”. Over 80 percent of participants in the Democracy Fund study, who were surveyed at different times from 2017 to 2022, said democracy is a fairly or very good political system. And only 8 percent were found to be “consistently authoritarian” in their responses.

But when Democracy Fund asked a series of questions aimed at gauging support for key tenets of liberal democracy — including about authoritarian rule, about using violence to advance political goals, and about accepting election results — only 27% always gave the pro-democracy answer.

Perhaps even more troubling, this willingness to deprioritize democracy corresponded closely to partisan interests. For instance, in September 2020, 81% of Republicans said it would be important for the loser of that year’s election to acknowledge the winner. In November — the month when the election was called for Biden, and Trump refused to concede defeat — that figure was 31%.

“The results show that support for foundational principles of liberal democracy are discouragingly soft and inconsistent,” the study’s authors conclude, adding: “There is a significant segment of the population that may be willing to embrace or accept the cause of authoritarian figures if and when it is in their partisan and political interests.”

Plenty of other polling evidence points toward the same conclusion. A CNN poll from October found that 67% of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina said Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, if true, are not relevant to his fitness for the presidency.

An AP/NORC poll released in December found that 87% of Democrats said a Trump win in 2024 would damage democracy, while 82% of Republicans said the same thing about a Biden win.

And a University of Virginia poll released in October found that 41% of Biden supporters and 38% of Trump supporters said the other side is so extreme that it’s OK to use violence to stop them. The same poll found that 31% of Trump supporters and 24% of Biden supporters thought the U.S. should explore non-democratic forms of government.

“Support for various aspects of liberal democracy has always been spongier than we’d like to think,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the New America think tank and a co-author of the Democracy Fund report. “But what’s distinct to this moment is that one party has elevated leaders that show no restraint and no respect for these foundational aspects of liberal democracy.”

“(So) you have people who are willing to tolerate tremendous incursions on the foundations of democracy as long as it’s their side that’s doing it,” Drutman continued, “and you have a party with leaders who are willing to take advantage.”

How to reduce polarization

There are some reasons for hope. Last June, a Stanford University project convened a nationally representative sample of 600 registered voters of all political stripes for lengthy deliberative conversations, in groups of 10, on issues affecting U.S. democracy, including voter access, election administration, and campaign finance.

The organizers consistently found that the conversations led participants to become less polarized across partisan lines in their opinions, with Republicans moving towards Democrats and vice versa.

For instance, only 30% of Republicans started out supporting the idea of letting people register to vote online. But after the conversations, a majority joined most Democrats in backing the idea.

Conversely, only 44% of Democrats started out liking the idea of requiring audits of a random sample of ballots to ensure that votes are counted accurately. After the conversations, 58% joined most Republicans in support.

Views even on seemingly more controversial ideas like having nonpartisan officials, not partisan lawmakers, draw district lines, or restoring voting rights to ex-felons, changed dramatically, especially among Republicans, said James Fishkin, a Stanford political scientist who helped organize the conversations.

Fishkin said the results suggest to him that once the campaign focuses more squarely on the threat to democracy, voters will start to grasp the need to protect it.

“The norms that make democracy work do matter to people, and the idea that democracy might come to an end is such an awesome threat that people haven’t really thought about it,” said Fishkin. ‘They’re thinking about inflation and the so-called crisis at the border, they’re not thinking about the end of democracy as we know it. I think once the public focuses on it, you may well get a different answer.”

But to Drutman, the threat will persist as long as the nation remains hyper-polarized, with one party willing to trample democratic norms.

“One argument is that there is an anti-MAGA majority out there of people who are committed enough to democracy that some small sliver of the electorate will continue to elect Democrats,” Drutman said. “But democracy can’t fundamentally depend on one party winning forever.”

Then-gubernatorial candidate Daniel Cameron speaks during the 143rd Fancy Farm Picnic on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

Former Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron’s office agreed to pay $99,750 to settle a long-running open records dispute in December just days before Cameron left to become CEO of an organization devoted to combatting “woke capitalism,” among other objectives.

American Oversight, an open records advocacy group based in Washington D.C., had sued Cameron’s office in 2020 soon after he became attorney general, alleging his office was refusing to release records related to a “ballot integrity” task force he co-chaired, the Kentucky Lantern reported last year.

The request was part of a broader inquiry American Oversight was conducting in multiple states regarding such task forces.

The lawsuit, filed in Franklin Circuit Court, alleged Cameron initially refused to release records it sought, then failed to fully comply after a judge ruled he must provide them.

The case became a battle over how the Kentucky Attorney General — who is the primary arbiter of open records disputes involving all state and local agencies — must handle requests for records from its own office.

American Oversight “got stonewalled by the attorney general,” said Amye Bensenhaver, co-director of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition, which tracks access to public information.

Cameron’s office entered the settlement with American Oversight, which sought compensation for legal costs and penalties for withheld records, nine days before his term as attorney general ended.

The Dec. 22 settlement agreement, provided by the office of Russell Coleman who succeeded Cameron as attorney general, denies any liability and said the sole purpose is to? settle the dispute and avoid further litigation.

Cameron did not respond to a request for comment through his new employer, the The 1792 Exchange.

That group, which hired Cameron, a Republican, after he lost the 2023 governor’s race to Democratic incumbent Andy Beshear, is dedicated to opposing “woke capitalism” and defending “free exercise, free speech and free enterprise,” according to its website. It is named after the year the first American stock exchange was founded.

After Cameron refused the initial records request from American Oversight, the group, under state law,? appealed to Cameron’s office which upheld its own decision. American Oversight then challenged the denial in court.

Bensenhaver said she was pleased by the outcome.

Court fight raises doubts about Cameron’s commitment to transparency

“The chief takeway from the settlement,” Bensenhaver said in an email, “is the affirmation that the attorney general is subject to the same standard of strict open records compliance when he receives a request for records of his agency that his office applies to all other public agencies in adjudicating disputes involving discharge of their public records duties.”

However, Besenhaver, who previously worked for 25 years in Kentucky as an assistant attorney general reviewing open records cases and writing opinions, said it’s unfortunate that taxpayers bear the cost, noting the nearly $100,000 payment “is not insignificant.”

And Bensenhaver said it’s also unfortunate the case won’t set a legal precedent since it was resolved through a settlement before a final court ruling.

Still, she said she hopes Coleman, a Republican who became attorney general in January, considers the case in future open records decisions from his office, saying “General Coleman should embrace the lessons this case imparts.”

Bensenhaver called “groundbreaking” an opinion in the case by Franklin Circuit Judge Phillip Shepherd in which he said agencies must make an effort to locate and produce public records and not demand specific “search terms” or the location of documents.

“To place the burden on the requestor is to invite the agency to hide relevant records that are obscurely labeled or stored in deep recesses of its bureaucratic records system,” Shepherd’s opinion said. “It is the duty of the agency to conduct an open, thorough and good faith search of its records in response to an open records request.”

The settlement agreement doesn’t specify the purpose of the payment but American Oversight had been seeking lawyers’ fees, costs and penalties for what it said were violations of Kentucky’s open records law.

The agreement says the parties would ask the court to dismiss the lawsuit as settled once the funds were paid to American Oversight.

Court records in the case show such a request was filed and the case dismissed Jan. 22.

Bensenhaver said she never understood why Cameron’s office fought against release of routine records, such as schedules and records of meetings, from the Ballot Integrity Task Force, which serves as an advisory commission to monitor elections.

“I think it’s kind of fascinating that he’s going to erect these barriers to fairly innocuous records,” she told the Lantern last year.

Heather Sawyer, executive director of American Oversight, said records the group obtained in Kentucky showed the “ballot integrity” task force produced? no evidence of any widespread election problems that had been alleged in Kentucky and other states after the 2020 presidential election in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

“It’s unfortunate that Kentucky officials falsely claimed widespread voter fraud to justify a toothless ‘task force’ and then wasted thousands of taxpayers dollars before conceding that it was only ‘a discussion group’ that did ‘not take actions or implement policy,’” Sawyer said in a statement. “Thanks to Kentucky’s Open Records law, Kentuckians now know that this so-called task force was nothing more than an expensive political stunt.”

A pro-Trump mob breaks into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. while Congress held a joint session to ratify Joe Biden's 306-232 Electoral College win over then-President Donald Trump. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

On the third anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol, some Republican activists in Kentucky rallied support for those who stormed Congress and asserted that information about the violence of Jan. 6, 2021 is being withheld from the public.

The Republican Party of Kentucky’s central committee narrowly approved a resolution to that effect on Saturday at a sparsely attended meeting.?

“I would say the Republican Party is a little split,” said Bobbie Coleman, the chair of the Hardin County Republican Party, who introduced the resolution, as the Lexington Herald-Leader first reported.

The party committee voted by secret ballot, Coleman told the Lantern on Monday, adding that not every committee member at the meeting cast a ballot. The resolution passed 34-32.

Republican legislative and party leaders had little to say on Monday about their fellow Republicans’ claims that Jan. 6 protesters are being detained unconstitutionally and denied due process. Protesters who stormed the Capitol were attempting to block certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s election as president.

No action in legislature

The resolution defending the rioters also was introduced Friday in the Kentucky Senate. The Senate took no action on it Monday other than assigning it to a committee. Senate President Robert Stivers said he left the Saturday central committee meeting before the resolution was considered and hasn’t “looked at it.”

House Speaker David Osborne said he did not attend the party meeting Saturday or hear the debate but that he’s “heard lots about it.” Osborne declined to say how he would have voted at the party meeting but said “it will not be our intent” to call the resolution in the House.

Republican Party of Kentucky spokesman Sean Southard has had nothing to say about the resolution. Attempts by the Lantern to reach the recently-elected chair of the party, Robert Benvenuti, were not successful.

Rewriting history

Kentucky Democrats did not shy from denouncing the resolutions and calling on Republicans to condemn those defending the rioters.

John Yarmuth, the former Democratic congressman representing Louisville who was in the U.S. Capitol during the riot, said “virtually everybody” among the rioters committed a crime that day, regardless of the severity.

“If you defecate in the halls of Congress, you may not have acted violently, but you acted criminally,” Yarmuth said.

He said he considers the resolutions, along with former President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on the riot, to be a part of broader efforts to rewrite the history of the riot as a peaceful protest when it was “a violent insurrection aimed at disrupting our democracy.”

“People are going to believe what they want to believe,” Yarmuth said. “Most American people saw what happened that day and they saw it with their own eyes.”

The Kentucky Democratic Party chair Colman Elridge lambasted the resolution as “doubling down on hate, division, and even political violence.”?

“Kentucky Republicans, especially elected officials and candidates, should condemn this appalling and unpatriotic resolution and stand up to extremism, violence and the insurrectionists that have taken over their party,” Elridge said in his statement.?

‘It’s out there, and our media is not being honest’

Speaking to the Lantern, Coleman, the Hardin County GOP chair, claimed that “at least 200 FBI agents” infiltrated the Jan. 6, 2021 protest of Biden’s election. A quarter of Americans and a third of Republicans think the FBI helped orchestrate the riot, a Washington Post-University of Maryland poll recently found. There is no evidence of FBI involvement in inciting the attackers.

Coleman cited riot coverage she has seen in the Epoch Times, a far-right media company associated with the Falun Gong religious movement that has promoted conspiracy theories including misinformation on vaccines, QAnon, and false claims of election fraud during the 2020 presidential election.

“It’s out there, and our media is not being honest,” Coleman said of the claim of the FBI’s involvement in the Jan. 6 attack.

Coleman? said the resolution she introduced at the party meeting “is not supporting the actions of what happened on Jan. 6” but instead claiming that constitutional rights are being denied those charged in the riot at the U.S. Capitol.?

The defense of the rioters echoes former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. Trump has said the rioters acted “peacefully and patriotically,” comparing those charged in the breach to “hostages.”?

Most defendants released on pretrial bond

State Sen. Lindsey Tichenor of Oldham County introduced the resolution in the state Senate on Friday, the day before the third anniversary.

It claims some defendants indicted for breaching the Capitol, including many Kentuckians, have been “unconstitutionally held without the right to due process” and the right to a speedy trial by a jury. The resolution describes rioters that day as innocent “protestors” who are “wrongfully accused or detained as prisoners.”

The two-page resolution also claims information has been withheld from the public regarding the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Tichenor said she believes the majority of people who entered the Capitol did not have “mal-intent,” though she added there could have been people there to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election.?

“If they have their due process rights in place, those are going to — those truths are going to come out,” she said.?

In Congress, there’s been a growing partisan rift between lawmakers over what happened, with some Republicans seeking to discredit a previous investigation by Democrats into the riot. That investigation found that Trump was involved in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 presidential election results and failed to stop supporters from attacking the capitol. Trump currently faces federal charges for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election leading up to the riot.?

Twenty-three people have been arrested in Kentucky in cases involving the Capitol breach, according to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). with charges ranging from assaulting law enforcement? — one Kentuckian is accused of dragging a police officer down steps into rioters where the officer was beaten — to violent entry and disorderly conduct in the Capitol building.?

More than 1,200 people have been charged in connection with the riot, according to the Associated Press. Of those charged, about 730 people have pleaded guilty while about another 170 have been convicted on at least one charge in trial by a judge or jury. Two defendants have been acquitted on all charges by a judge. The large majority of defendants in the months after the riot were released on pretrial bond.?

The U.S. Justice Department says the prosecutions are moving forward “at an unprecedented speed and scale.”

Attack on the ‘very foundation of American democracy’

Tom Tye, the chair of the Boyle County Republican Party, was one of the state party committee members who voted against the resolution. He said he didn’t believe the central committee was the appropriate place for such a resolution to be considered.?

“I really think there’s no excuse for breaching the perimeter of the Capitol,” Tye said. “I don’t think that’s an issue that needs to come out of the Republican Party of Kentucky. It’s a national issue.”?

He said the state party’s primary role is to encourage and help Republican candidates for elected office, not to take “a political position.” But he did agree that “due process has not been extended” to Jan. 6 riot defendants based on “what I’ve read and what I’ve been led to believe.”

Joshua A. Douglas, a University of Kentucky law professor and expert on election law, said Republican attempts to rewrite the Jan. 6 history, especially during a presidential election, threaten democracy.

“We all watched in horror on Jan. 6, 2021, as a segment of Trump supporters sought to undermine American democracy, refusing to accept a peaceful transfer of power. It’s extremely concerning that, in an election year, some individuals are trying to rewrite that history,” Douglas said.

“Make no mistake: this is another example of an attempt to attack the very foundation of American democracy.

“I remain optimistic about American democracy as we begin a presidential election year — but my optimism requires people to speak up. People from all sides and all political parties should denounce this current attempt to minimize the serious violence that took place at the U.S. Capitol that day.”?

McKenna Horsley and Jamie Lucke contributed to this report.

Ranked choice voting, which asks voters to rank multiple candidates in order of preference, has seen its profile steadily expand since 2016.?(Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)

With U.S. democracy plagued by extremism, polarization, and a growing disconnect between voters and lawmakers, a set of reforms that could dramatically upend how Americans vote is gaining momentum at surprising speed in Western states.

Ranked choice voting, which asks voters to rank multiple candidates in order of preference, has seen its profile steadily expand since 2016, when Maine became the first state to adopt it. But increasingly, RCV is being paired with a new system for primaries known as Final Five — or in some cases, Final Four — that advances multiple candidates, regardless of party, to the general election.

Together, proponents argue, these twin reforms deliver fairer outcomes that better reflect the will of voters, while disempowering the extremes and encouraging candidates and elected officials to prioritize conciliation and compromise.

Ultimately, they say, the new system can help create a government focused not on partisan point-scoring but on delivering tangible results that improve voters’ lives.

Alaska, the only state currently using RCV-plus-Final Four or Final-Five, appears to be seeing some benefits to its political culture already: After years of partisan rancor, both legislative chambers are now controlled by bipartisan majorities eager to find common ground and respond to the needs of voters, say lawmakers in the state who have embraced the new system.

A slew of other states could soon follow in Alaska’s footsteps. Last year, Nevada voters approved a constitutional amendment that would create an RCV-plus-Final-Five system — for the measure to take effect, voters must approve it again next year.

Efforts also are underway to get RCV-plus-Final-Five on Arizona’s 2024 ballot, and RCV-plus-Final-Four in Colorado and Idaho — where organizers announced Wednesday that they’ve gathered 50,000 signatures (they need around 63,000 to qualify). Even Wisconsin Republicans, who in the redistricting sphere have fought reform efforts tooth and nail, in December held a hearing for bipartisan legislation that would create RCV-plus-Final-Five, though its prospects appear dim.

Meanwhile, Oregon voters will decide next year whether to adopt RCV alone. And this year, Minnesota and Illinois lawmakers passed bills to study RCV, while Connecticut approved a measure that allows local governments to use it.

There are even flickers of interest at the national level. In December alone, two leading Washington, D.C. think tanks that often find themselves on opposite sides — the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Center for American Progress — each held separate panel discussions that considered RCV-plus-Final-Four/Five.

Katherine Gehl, the founder of the Institute for Political Innovation, and the designer of the Final Four/Five system, calls RCV-plus-Final-Five “transformational.” (Her organization now says advancing five candidates to the general works best, by giving voters more choices.)

“There’s a huge pressure on reformers to say, this is not a silver bullet,” said Gehl. “And OK, I get that.”

But, she added, “I think it’s as close to a silver bullet as you can come.”

Meanwhile, a backlash to reform is brewing, with several Republican-led states banning RCV in recent years. A coalition of national conservative election groups last month warned Wisconsin’s legislative leaders that RCV and Final Five are “intended to dramatically push our politics to the Left.”

Understanding the process

Here’s how RCV-plus-Final-Four/Five works.

In the primary election, candidates from all parties compete against each other, with voters picking only their top choice, as in a conventional election. The top four or five finishers, regardless of party, advance to the general.

In the general, voters use RCV to pick the winner. They fill out their ballot by ranking as many of the candidates as they want, by order of preference.

If no candidate wins a majority of first-place votes, the candidate who finished last is eliminated, and his or her supporters’ second-place votes are allocated. If there’s still no candidate with a majority, the process is repeated with the next-to-last candidate. This continues until someone gains a majority and is declared the winner.

Supporters of the system say the Final Four/Five primary gives a voice to a broader share of voters, while the use of RCV in the general helps ensure a fairer result. Under the current system, two similar candidates together may win a clear majority but split voters between them, allowing a third candidate to win with a minority of votes.

But even more important, many advocates argue, is how the two reforms together can change how candidates and elected officials of all stripes approach their jobs, by adjusting the incentive structure they operate under.

Increasingly, many states and districts are solidly red or blue, meaning the general election is uncompetitive, and the key race takes place in the primary. That’s a problem, because the primary electorate is by and large smaller, more partisan and more extreme than the general electorate.

Right now, with politicians worrying more about the primary than the general, they’re more focused on playing to their base than on reaching beyond it and solving problems, critics argue. It isn’t hard to find evidence for this lately, both in Washington and in state capitals across the country.

By allowing multiple candidates to advance, Final Four/Five shifts the crucial election from the primary to the general. And RCV means the votes of Democrats in red districts and Republicans in blue ones still matter, even if their top choice remains unlikely to win.

Together, it means candidates are rewarded for paying attention to the entire general electorate, not just a small slice of staunch supporters. As a result, it encourages candidates — and elected officials, once in office — toward moderation and problem-solving, and away from extremism.

“People do what it takes to get and keep their jobs,” said Gehl, the Final Four/Five designer. “So if you change who hires and fires, which is to say, November voters instead of primary voters, and you change the system so that there’s real competition in November every time, even once you’re an incumbent, that forces accountability.”

A success story from the Last Frontier?

The experience of Alaska, whose voters passed an RCV-plus-Final-Four system in 2020, offers an illustration.

At its first use in 2022, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, an independent-minded Republican distrusted by the party’s conservative wing, was reelected. Mary Peltola, a moderate Democrat who kept in place her Republican predecessor’s chief of staff, was elected to the U.S. House, defeating Sarah Palin, the conservative Republican former governor. (Murkowski and Peltola endorsed each other).

Meanwhile, voters reelected Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a conservative Republican – suggesting, reformers say, that the system can produce a wide range of outcomes.

And more women ran in 2022 than in the five previous cycles combined — highlighting how allowing anyone to run, regardless of party, can boost opportunities for under-represented groups.

But the effect on how candidates and lawmakers have approached their jobs has been more dramatic still, advocates say.

Senate Majority Leader Cathy Giessel, a Republican, told the Center for American Progress event that, after angering GOP voters by working collaboratively with Democrats, she lost her 2020 primary, held under the old election system, to a staunch conservative. Giessel had been in office since 2011.

Giessel said that when she ran again last year under RCV-plus-Final-Four, her campaign didn’t even buy the database showing voters’ party affiliations that most candidates rely on to identify supporters, because she needed to target voters of all stripes. Helped by being the second choice of many Democratic voters in the general election, Giessel won back her seat.

“You’re requiring us as candidates to be much more authentic,” said Giessel of the new system. “We’re not speaking to a party platform anymore. We’re speaking to the citizens.”

Giessel now leads a bipartisan majority coalition, formed within days of the election. Members have focused on consensus issues that are priorities for voters, including boosting education funding, lowering the cost of energy and passing a balanced budget.

“We have seen much more collaboration on the budget,” said Giessel. “There’s a much more open process now, understanding that everyone needs to have input.“

An analysis by the R Street Institute, a center-right Washington, D.C. think tank, found that Alaska’s new election system “gave citizens greater choice and elevated the most broadly appealing candidates, in turn improving representation.”

Reformers in Nevada — gearing up for next year’s campaign to pass RCV-plus-Final-Five a second time after it won with 53% of the vote last year — have noticed Alaska’s early success.

Over 40% of all registered voters in the Silver State aren’t affiliated with a major party, and the figure is growing. It was these voters’ frustration over being denied a voice in the state’s taxpayer-funded closed primaries that initially drove the push for reform, said Mike Draper, the communications director for Nevada Voters First, a political action committee that organized the ballot measure.

As in Alaska and elsewhere, there was also a related concern about politicians playing only to their base.

“Candidates and electeds, through no fault of their own, are not incentivized to … work to solve problems,” said Draper. “The primary incentive is to make sure they stay in the good graces either of the party, or of that fringe group that’s active in the primaries.”

Top figures in both major parties, including Nevada’s Republican governor and its two Democratic U.S. senators, oppose reform. A lawsuit brought by Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias that aimed to keep the measure off the 2022 ballot was rejected by a judge.

‘A scheme of the Left’?

Though elected Democrats in Nevada and some other blue states have come out against reform, the most vocal opponents have been red-state Republicans and national conservative groups. They argue it would confuse voters and further reduce confidence in election results.

Some even see a progressive plot. An October analysis by the conservative Foundation for Government Accountability called RCV a “scheme of the Left to disenfranchise voters and elect more Democrats.”

Florida, Tennessee, Idaho, Montana, and South Dakota — all Republican-controlled states — have passed legislation in recent years to ban RCV. Arizona’s GOP-controlled legislature also passed an RCV ban, but it was vetoed by Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat.

In Alaska, conservatives have launched a campaign to advance a ballot measure repealing their state’s reform. Palin, who has blamed the system for her loss to Peltola last year, calling it “wack,” is playing a prominent role in the effort.

Still, advocates say there are also signs of emerging interest among some Republicans in other states.

Last year, the GOP lost several winnable statewide races after primary voters nominated extremists like Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Kari Lake in Arizona. Now, some in the party think reform could allow them to advance more electable candidates.

“Even among Republicans, I’ve had my fair share of conversations where they are starting to recognize that the system isn’t putting forward candidates who are necessarily the best general election winners,” said Matt Germer, an associate director and elections fellow at the R Street Institute.

“So there’s even some growing interest among Republican electeds to say, hey, what we’re doing now is not growing our party. And if we really want to change our country, we’re going to need to grow our party, and that means appealing to enough voters to win elections.”

Mike Lindell prepares to film a video at his offices in Chaska, Minnesota Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. Nicole Neri/The Minnesota Reformer

CHASKA, Minn. — Pillow mogul Mike Lindell calls up former Michigan state senator Patrick Colbeck, who works for something Lindell made up called the Election Crime Bureau, to talk about press strategy.

Lindell tells Colbeck a press release needs to mention his “offense fund,” to which people can give donations so Lindell can keep funding his election fraud battle now that he’s running out of money.

Lindell says he has a tally of U.S. counties that are eschewing voting machines for paper ballots, but he won’t disclose them to the “horrible media.”

Mid-conversation, Lindell starts brainstorming ideas with his marketing person on a new name for his FrankSpeech social media app — he wants the name to convey something about courage.

“Grit’s a good one,” Lindell says.

Lindell summons an employee and asks what MyPillow offers are being advertised on CNN and MSNBC. Colbeck waits on the phone.

Doug Wardlow, a MyPillow lawyer who twice ran for Minnesota attorney general and lost, walks in the office with an update on litigation with a company called MyBooty. Lindell is now having three different conversations at once.

He turns to me and says, “You know all about a Nebraska county going to paper ballots?”

Four conversations.

At MyPillow headquarters in Chaska, Minnesota, religion, politics, pillows and a kinetic CEO fuel a never-ending tornado that Lindell flies around in nearly every minute of every day, selling — always selling — his latest set of sheets, pseudo-Biblical prophecy, election fraud theory, grievance.

So many people are out to get him, he says, and his only defense is to sell more pillows (and bath towels, slippers, coffee, mattress covers and numerous other products).

In the lobby at pillow HQ, there’s a Bible. A devotional. A book called “Jesus Always.” A far-right newspaper called the Epoch Times. A conservative, pro-Israel newspaper called the Jewish Voice.

To find Mike Lindell, listen for the booming voice upstairs, where he’s just returned from several weeks traveling the country. A bevy of women orbit around him, often within earshot in case he bellows out their name with a question or demand.

In the morning, he prepares to do “The Jim Bakker Show” with his chief operating officer and son, Darren Lindell, and his chief marketing officer, Jessica Maskovich. (Three of his four children work for the company.)

“With all the cancellations, we’re expanding into other areas,” Lindell says, explaining why he’s going on the show of a disgraced televangelist.

Walmart, Kohl’s, J.C. Penney, Wayfair, Bed Bath & Beyond and other companies pulled MyPillow products after Lindell’s prominent White House appearance in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and Lindell has been battling since to save his company, as he fends off lawsuits that could obliterate it. Lindell says he has about 1,300 employees, with more seasonal workers coming for the holidays.

In the main floor call center at headquarters, phones will light up with orders and the ever-present promo codes that will help MyPillow track resulting sales during his media appearances.

Dressed in a light purple dress shirt with a cross necklace peeking out of the collar, Lindell works at a large conference table in his office — never his desk — surrounded by Christian-themed pictures, a closet full of labeled, plastic bins, and an adjoining bathroom and what one presumes is a teal MyPillow towel hanging on the shower door.

Lindell is going over the special offers he’ll promote on Bakker’s show and later, Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. He peppers his employees with questions.

“Can I see Bakker’s drop-in page?”

“What are they paying us on these two?”

“What about slippers?”

Christmas spots will start soon on Fox News, even though Fox won’t let him come on and talk about election fraud anymore, not since voting machine company Smartmatic filed a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox. Fox settled a separate Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit for nearly $800 million, and Lindell and his company are also being sued by Smartmatic and Dominion for far more than Lindell and his company are worth. Dominion is suing him for $1.3 billion, and Smartmatic for unspecified damages.

A middle-aged brunette woman pops into the office. She does deals with radio hosts across the country.

“We treat every one like it’s our only venue,” Lindell says.

He goes over the questions he’s been given in advance of his appearance on the Bakker show.

Like: “You’ve personally spent millions on the voting machine defamation lawsuits against you and MyPillow. Do you have any regrets?”

“I sure do!” Lindell says, rehearsing his answer. “That I didn’t include ES&S! Ha ha!”

By ES&S, he means Election Systems & Software, an Omaha company that manufactures voting machine equipment.

He says the media thinks he wanted to overturn the 2020 election to get Trump in office — which of course, all evidence indicates he did — but he now claims he would still be sounding the alarm about election security even if Trump had been re-elected.

“This was an attack on our country,” he says. “This isn’t about Donald Trump.” (Just days later, however, he would make another pilgrimage to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago.)

The topic sends him diving into his favorite rabbit hole, lecturing about voting machines — a campaign that has eaten up his personal fortune, and he says commands 80% of his focus. He’s been ordered to pay $5 million to a software engineer who took him up on a challenge to prove him wrong about 2020 election data.

He says he’s spent millions on this quest and his employee-owned company has lost hundreds of millions of dollars amid the fallout, and employees haven’t gotten a dividend in three years.

“We’ve been attacked everywhere from banks to box stores, the media, IRS, FBI,” he says.

The IRS recently filed two liens against his Texas home and land for nearly $9.5 million.

Lindell says the IRS isn’t allowing a deduction related to his effort to offload $10 million worth of oleandrin, a poisonous plant extract and unproven COVID-19 treatment, to other countries during the pandemic.

Lindell bought a stake in a company producing the dubious treatment, but scientists said it was possibly dangerous and his shipments kept getting stymied by the government until the oleandrin expired. He claimed it as a loss on his personal taxes.

He’s still enraged by a Dominion lawyer’s suggestion that he’s spinning election conspiracies to pump up MyPillow sales.

“If it was a marketing thing, I’m smart enough to say we failed,” Lindell says.

He now claims Republicans are also covering up problems with voting machines.

“Republicans were stealing elections,” Lindell says. “Our biggest blockers have been the Republicans to get rid of these voting machines.”

Democrats have also publicly worried about their vulnerabilities, too. Lindell notes that U.S. Sen Amy Klobuchar warned about the vulnerability of electronic voting machines in the HBO documentary “Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections,” which arrived about the same time as the COVID-19 pandemic. The election experts in the film say that the answer is paper ballots counted by computers, so the vote can be audited. Lindell wants paper ballots to be hand counted.

While election experts say no voting system is invulnerable, a coalition of federal cybersecurity and election officials concluded the 2020 election was “the most secure in American history.” Hand counting paper ballots is also slower, less accurate and more vulnerable to the very fraud Lindell claims to be fighting.

Lindell switches from preparing for the Bakker show to talking about his conservative social media platforms — where you can watch Lindell TV 24/7. He’s poured millions into creating his own mouthpieces; he says he put $12 million into his nightly Lindell TV show, which has run for two years on his own servers. He says about 4 million people watch FrankSpeech — conservative broadcast network and video platform — per month.

He says he’s persuaded about 200 counties to “go machine free” and hopes to get them all on board next year.

“I just get fired up,” he says.

Then he turns to his marketing guru and says, “Tell me what you want me to wear.”

While Maskovich gets up and grabs the options, Lindell calls for his controller, Michael Thomas.

“So what do we got for money?”

Then he starts a separate phone conversation with his procurement director Bob Sohns, saying, “Bob Bob Bob Bob Bob.”

They’re debating which bills to pay that day.

“They both need to be paid or?” Lindell says. “175 based on last week.”

“Do we need to post-date it so it looks good?”

“Go ahead and mail that one.”

“Pay the 86. Tell ‘em to send a truck immediately … don’t say anything about 175.”

“How much do we have at Lindell Management? Does that include Bannon?”

“Pull those loans.”

Lindell opts to wear the white shirt and blue jacket, then goes into the bathroom to change and starts talking on the phone again.

Wardlow walks in the office looking for Lindell.

Lindell walks out with his dress shirt untucked, talking on the phone.

No one else seems to be talking about fraud in the recent election, but Lindell will talk all day about it: “It was horrific… in Virginia, Pennsylvania, Dallas,” he says.

‘He was a mile-a-minute guy’?

This is how it goes all day long.

Lindell estimates he’s in Texas about half the time, and Minnesota about one-third of the time, so when he’s at headquarters, it’s a machine gun of questions, answers, demands, commentary, wardrobe changes, makeup, cameras and lights.

His employees try to get questions answered, documents signed, decisions made, but he’s in motion, jabbering on while often scrawling madly on paper.

Former Chaska Mayor Bob Roepke served on the MyPillow board of directors for several years before leaving in January 2021 after Lindell became enamored with Trump.

“He was really engaged with that relationship,” Roepke says. “We just weren’t aligned in terms of national leadership.”

Roepke decided it was best to resign, but says Lindell is a true entrepreneur who touched every component of his business.

“He was a mile-a-minute guy, going and going and going and then going some more. I’m not sure when he ever rested.”

Lindell helped friends from his past — his journey from crackhead to pillow salesman is legendary — and was committed to his employees, Roepke says.

“We talked about using automation to reduce the workforce, but he didn’t want any part of that,” he says. “It was really important for him to employ those who had challenges in their life.”

Lindell has long followed his instincts, beliefs and sometimes even literal dreams, which took his company far, but now have put it on the line. It’s a privately held company, which means MyPillow’s financial health is opaque. Lindell is the primary stockholder.

‘It was a Hardee’s, not a Wendy’s’

Lindell is hawking products on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast — which one study found had more inaccuracies than any other podcast.

Lindell heads down the hallway to the other end of the building where he’s converted an office into a makeshift TV studio. He sits at a desk in front of bookcases stuffed with bright towels, furry slippers and an array of small, colorful children’s pillows with cartoonish Bible scenes.

On the video monitor, Bannon is talking about George Floyd, then goes to break and tells Lindell, “You got a hot three (minutes).”

While waiting for his segment to begin, Lindell asks for a mirror and dabs makeup onto his face and spritzes on some hairspray.

Since getting dropped by multiple retailers, Lindell says, Bannon regularly has him on the podcast to do “basically a commercial” like those he used to do on mainstream stations to launch his pillows in 2014.

Bannon was charged with duping thousands of people who donated money to “build the wall” on America’s southern border; much of the money was misspent but Trump pardoned him on his way out of office. He has since been recharged and has pleaded innocent.

“They’re tryin’ to bankrupt Mike Lindell,” Bannon says in the leadup to the segment. When they go after Lindell, they’re going after you, Bannon tells his audience.

This kind of manichean, existentialist politics of survival sells —?and apparently sells pillows, too.

“Mike Lindell, how do we keep MyPillow open?” Bannon asks to start the hot three minutes.

Yes, Lindell says, the FBI attacked my call center reps but you can buy some “last chance flash sale slippers” for $39.98 or a six-pack of towels for $29.98. Or perhaps sleepwear, quilts, comforters and don’t forget the promo code, the Bannonesque WAR ROOM.

(Lindell later clarifies that it’s not the FBI, but the Minnesota Department of Revenue that is auditing his call center contract employees who work from home.)

“Thanks for working on the plan,” Lindell tells Bannon before signing off.

The plan to secure elections, that is. He has one. It involves a wireless device that monitors polling places to see if voting machines are connected to the internet.

On the podcast again in the afternoon, Bannon praises Lindell for risking his company to investigate election fraud, mentioning the FBI seizing his cell phone while he was in a Wendy’s drive-thru about a year ago.

“Fact check: It was a Hardee’s not a Wendy’s,” Lindell says.

Though today Lindell did have a KFC two-piece meal for lunch.

Feeling the love from a fallen televangelist

In less than half an hour, Lindell is back in the studio to do “The Jim Bakker Show.” Four employees scurry around trying to find a suitable pillow for the segment. It has to be the perfect pillow for the moment. The right size and fluffiness.

Once found, Lindell plumps it up, turns it, preps it, fluffs it until it’s just right and then cradles it in his hands and puts on his trademark salesman smile for the camera, fidgeting with his hands while waiting for the green light.

Bakker is a former televangelist who rode the gospel to fame in the 1970s and 1980s with his “Praise the Lord” show, propelled in part by his glitzy, heavily made-up blonde wife Tammy Faye, who was born in International Falls, Minnesota.

It all came crashing down in the late 1980s amid a sex scandal, criminal indictments and news of Rolls Royces, a jet and an air-conditioned doghouse. He and Tammy Faye broke up, and she died a gay icon for her compassion for LGBT people and HIV patients during the height of the AIDS epidemic.

Jim Bakker served five years in prison for fraud, and now he’s back with a revived TV show and empire — syndicated on Christian television networks — that looks very much like the old one, complete with a new heavily made-up blonde wife named Lori (who bears a striking resemblance to Tammy Faye), a Christian resort in the Ozarks, and several ways to give money money money, such as buying a bucket of end-times survival food.

Lindell and the Bakkers chat by video briefly before the show begins.

The Bakkers ask about American Express, which Lindell says reduced MyPillow’s credit line from a million dollars to $100,000 in September. He says his company “had to use debit cards” to get by until they got a new card.

“Demonic,” Lori says.

Jim Bakker wants to know why they don’t like Lindell.

“Because I want to get rid of the electronic voting machines,” Lindell says.

“The bottom line is they don’t want me talking anymore,” he says.

“They hate you as much as Trump I guess,” Jim Bakker says.

During the on-air segment, the Bakkers are adoring fans, repeatedly saying, “We love you.”

Jim Bakker commiserates, saying “the left” has been trying to take him off TV for years. Then he claims he lost $20 million through lawsuits.

Lindell is undeterred.

“They’ll never stop my voice,” he says, even though, as he acknowledges to Bakker, “My money is gone.”

“I’ll keep going,” he says.

‘I don’t think he’s demanding; he’s particular’

Lindell told the Bakkers his employees have been great throughout the storm. And also, “I treat every employee like my only employee.”

But clearly he can be abrupt and demanding and rarely says “thank you” or “please.”

“I don’t think he’s demanding —?he’s particular,” says Jennifer Pauly Hunter, vice president of tech services for MyPillow.

He wants to know the price of the promoted products down to the penny, and debates whether it’s the right price point. He needs the pillow to look just right on TV. He needs the perfect outfit for the interview.

Pauly Hunter has worked for MyPillow for over 11 years. Her sister is an office manager there. Her mom works in shipping. Her cousin is tech coordinator for the warehouse. Her other sister and a cousin also used to work there.

“It’s a family thing,” she says.

She started as a temp in the call center to make gas money while she was going to school to be a health care administrator.

Technology always came easy to her and Lindell spotted her talent, so she took classes and now has an office adjacent to the call center, where operators take calls 24/7 in row after row of cubicles, including weekends and holidays.

If you’re loyal and want to learn a skill, Lindell will support you in that, Pauly Hunter says.

If you have a death in the family — like when her uncle died — he’ll send flowers and cards.

Sometimes she wears a MyPillow hoodie in public, and people will make comments like, “You work for a crazy man.”

“Sometimes it hurts my feelings,” Pauly Hunter says. “Because I know how passionate and how much Mike cares.”

The political stuff is “one little fraction of his life,” she says.

Sarah Cronin, Lindell’s chief of staff, is a Chaska High School graduate who started out stuffing pillows, and now has a spacious corner office that once belonged to a bank president.

“It’s always exciting to come to work,” she says.

She’s filling in for Lindell’s assistant today, a job that includes manning his phone, heeding his demand that every call and text be answered immediately. She gladly offloads the phone to Pauly Hunter mid-morning.

Lindell jokes that every journalist in the country has his cell phone number, as well as 500 employees (no joke).

‘Tell me another problem’

Back at the conference table, Lindell is on the phone with his controller, Thomas.

An employee walks in and Lindell asks about numbers. She says they’re “up 15,000.” In other words, MyPillow sales were up $15,000 for the day compared to the same moment in time the day before.

Lindell says each afternoon they should be at about a half-million dollars in sales.

“Bannon’s at 29-five,” an employee tells him. That means their commercials had generated $2,950 by that point.

“So is he happy?” Lindell asks.

“He wants to do $100,000 today,” the employee says. In other words, Bannon wants MyPillow to make $100,000 today, not knowing the company normally makes about five times that, Lindell says.

Wardlow quietly walks in the office again. He tells Lindell they need to sign the Deutsche Bank settlement and talk about the MyBooty lawsuit.

Lindell says he’s meeting with all the attorneys general in the nation. (A meeting with Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison seems doubtful.)

After some discussion, they settle on a new name for his social media app: Courage.

“What else you got?” Lindell says. “Tell me another problem.”

They talk about FrankTV and some coming “big-name hosts” he won’t disclose — although Roger Stone’s name comes up. (Also convicted of crimes and pardoned by Trump.)

As Lindell wraps up the call, he booms joyously, “What was that movie? Get back out there and sell sell sell!”

(It’s “Trading Places,” a movie about how you can easily lose it all.)

‘It’s hard to have lawyers who don’t believe in what you’re doing’

Lindell returns from an interview about LifeWave phototherapy patches — which several employees are wearing and swear cures migraines and other ailments.

Pauly Hunter goes over Lindell’s “to do” list.

“You still need to call Mar-a-Lago and your lawyer,” she says. He’s going to Florida to meet with the CEO of PublicSquare — a right-wing business digital directory —?and meet with Trump at his Palm Beach resort.

He calls an attorney interested in representing him in lawsuits with voting machine companies Smartmatic and Dominion.

“It’s hard to have lawyers who don’t believe in what you’re doing,” Lindell tells the lawyer.

He’s fine with the retainer. He asks if they have a plane so they can meet up while he’s traveling.

“Something has to be filed Monday with Smartmatic,” Lindell says.

He later says he and MyPillow decided to part ways with the attorneys because the bills were $2 million per month. They’re going with a new firm that is “10 times cheaper,” he says.

The Minneapolis and Washington law firms told federal judges they’re owed millions in legal fees.

“I have a pickup truck and two houses: in Texas and Florida,” Lindell says.

But he still leases a private jet, as he has for years.

And now he’s off and talking about the various places that are moving away from voting machines. He claims he gets the most pushback from Republicans, which dovetails with one of his messages of the day, that he’s not actually the partisan Republican he’s been made out to be.

“I was neither party before all this happened,” he says.

If voting machines can be manipulated, who’s doing the manipulating? He’s not sure, but thinks the CIA is involved, and the Deep State, and the “uniparty.”

His wife, Kendra, calls. After eight years of dating, they married last spring.

“I’m really in the mood for California crust (pizza),” he tells her.

That night, Lindell does an online-streamed show, where he talks about election security and takes calls —?during which he’s occasionally distracted by his phone, from which he says he runs his business, eschewing a computer.

Brian in Minnesota wants to know if he ever got his cell phone back from the FBI. No he didn’t, he says, and there are pictures of his grandkids on it.

“They’re turning up the heat on MyPillow because they know our plan is gonna work,” he says.

He leaves the office at 7 p.m., and says he’ll spend the next four hours at home reading 433 emails and 73 texts before returning at 8 a.m. tomorrow.

This story was republished from Minnesota Reformer, a sister publication of Kentucky Lantern and part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and donors as a 501c(3) public charity.?

Becky Jones, the first vice president of the League of Women Voters of Kentucky, speaks to reporters. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)

FRANKFORT — The League of Women Voters of Kentucky released a report Wednesday that found the General Assembly has increasingly fast-tracked bills in a manner that makes citizen participation nearly impossible —?about a month before lawmakers return to Frankfort in January.?

The League’s analysis found that fewer than 5% of bills that became law 25 years ago used four fast-tracked methods. In 2022, 32% of House bills passed and 24% of Senate bills passed were fast-tracked in ways that exclude the public, the report found.

The trend, which began around 2002, peaked in 2014 when fast-tracked bills increased to 42% in the House and 29% in the Senate.?

The report, titled “How Can They Do That? Transparency and Citizen Participation in Kentucky’s Legislative Process,” reviewed seven 60-day legislative sessions between 1998 and 2022 and examined how often the General Assembly did not follow its established process to give Kentuckians time to review and comment on proposed legislation.?

“Even though some legislators may claim that procedures like these have always happened, our analysis showed that 25 years ago, less than 5% of bills that became law used one or more of those maneuvers,” says a League news release. “In 2002, the percentage began to increase rather dramatically. … There is indeed a pattern of increasing use of fast-track maneuvers that make participation more difficult.”?

The period studied by the League began two years before Democrats lost their narrow control of the Senate in 2000. In 2016 Republicans won control of the House. Republicans now hold supermajorities in both chambers.

Additionally, the League, which is non-partisan, made recommendations to citizens and lawmakers about how to improve transparency in the future. All state lawmakers will receive a copy of the report.?

One of the first things lawmakers do at the start of a session is pass the rules that govern the legislative process, said Becky Jones, the first vice president of the League in a news conference in the Capitol Annex. The rules include how bills will be debated and reviewed by the two chambers.?

“We suggest those rules to do two things: meet the constitutional requirements for legislation, of course, and provide sufficient time for legislators and the public to review and comment on the proposed legislation before legislators vote on it,” Jones said. “Why? Because legislative transparency equals public visibility.”

The report also notes that some lawmakers may respond by saying such processes have always been this way in Frankfort and that’s why the review included multiple years. The League cited a moment on an April episode of Kentucky Tonight when House Majority Caucus Chair Suzanne Miles, R-Owensboro, recalled that when she first came to the legislature as part of the minority she got “a letter for me to sign off for a commitment to vote for the budget bill prior to ever seeing [the] bill if I was to get coal severance projects in my county…. I have had to vote on bills before that the copies were so hot that you couldn’t hardly touch them.”?

State Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, agreed on the show that it is understood that the majority party “can bend the rules,” and that, “it happens in every chamber across the country and in Congress. We all have procedural issues in the 11th hour… and I don’t think it’s going to change regardless of who is in the majority.”

Minority Floor Leader Derrick Graham, D-Frankfort, Minority Caucus Chair Cherlynn Stevenson, D-Lexington, and Minority Whip Rachel Roberts, D-Newport, applauded the League’s report in a statement Thursday morning and added they “agree whole-heartedly with the report’s conclusions.”

“As legislators in the minority party, we often find ourselves facing the same barriers as the public when it comes to the quick passage of major, often controversial, laws,” the House Democratic leaders said. “Our constitutional framers intended the legislative process to be deliberate, transparent, and subject to robust debate, ideals we believe the General Assembly needs to better embrace in 2024 and beyond. Sunlight truly is the best disinfectant, and those affected by the laws we pass deserve more of it.”

Senate Democratic Caucus Chair Reginald Thomas, D-Lexington, said in a statement Thursday he agreed with the League’s sentiments. He added that legislators “have a responsibility to ensure every action we take is conducted fairly and openly and is understandable by the public we serve.

Thomas also vowed to “continue to advocate for a more fair and transparent legislative process,” but noted the power to make the changes lie with the Republican supermajorities and “prioritize and implement the necessary reforms that open up our legislative process, allowing for greater citizen participation and oversight.”

“Transparency in the legislative process is a matter of principle and essential for maintaining the trust and confidence of the people. When citizens are informed and can actively participate in the legislative process, it strengthens our democracy and leads to more honest and effective governance.”

What’s happening

The League’s report found that four procedural maneuvers do not give citizens time to analyze bill language, give pertinent testimony to legislative committees, give input through phone calls, emails and visits to Frankfort, and alert other Kentuckians about their concerns.??

Those four procedural maneuvers that undermine citizen participation were:

• Replacing original versions of bills with last-minute committee substitute versions and allowing little or no time for citizens to review or comment before the committee vote.
• Holding required “readings” of bills before any committee has considered the bill.
• Holding floor votes on bills the same day as committee action on those bills.
• Holding floor votes on free conference committee reports the same day the reports are filed.

The League warned of damage to the “Democracy Principle,” or democracy that relies on “informed and active citizen participation.” With rapid legislative action, this participation can decrease.

The report provides many examples of bills “that are of grave concern” to citizens and advocacy groups that the legislature rushed through in ways that hid the actions from public view and excluded citizen voices, including the infamous “sewer bill” of 2018. It initially addressed “local provisions of wastewater services” but one day late in the session it became an overhaul of state retirement systems that was passed by both chambers that same day. The state Supreme Court later overturned? the law, saying the legislature had violated a constitutional provision assuring lawmakers and citizens time to review and comment on a bill before its passage.

An example identified in the report from the 2023 session was the passage of Senate Bill 150, which began as a measure to ban any Kentucky Department of Education guidance against misgendering trans students and became an omnibus anti-transgender bill, which included a ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors and placed new limits on sex education in public schools.?

“Near the end of the legislative session, the House Education Committee called a special meeting with less than an hour’s notice,” the report said. “At that meeting, the Committee made substantial changes to the bill, and both House and Senate voted on the amended version the same day, before citizens (and even fellow legislators) could review and comment on the changes.”

The report findings note that some citizens may think the only way to make their voices heard when participation is bypassed is to “disrupt the process.” Going back to SB 150, the report notes that “protestors were asked to leave after shouting and chanting from the balcony.”

“Ultimately, 19 people were arrested for criminal trespassing when they refused to leave,” the report says. “If the legislature increases its use of maneuvers that undermine public participation, we can expect citizens to become disillusioned with the legislative process and increasingly engage in protest and disruptions as a way to be heard.”

Recommendations

The League did identify several ways lawmakers and citizens can increase transparency in the legislative process in the future. Janie Lindle, a member of the report’s research team, said that she did not know if enough lawmakers would be willing to take the League’s recommendations to enact change, but publishing the report to make lawmakers aware is the first step.?

“We are aware that something has changed in the last 25 years, and now we really need to be more considerate of the citizens’ right to be part of deliberations,” Lindle said.?

The report’s recommendations to lawmakers were:?

• Hold the three required bill “readings” after a standing committee sends the bill to the whole House or Senate for a vote. Following the established process can give legislators and citizens time to review each bill and share thoughts before the floor vote.
• Make committee substitute bills available online at least one full day before the committee meeting when the substitute will be considered. Doing that can allow better informed and more relevant citizen feedback on the legislation being considered.
• Allow at least one full day between the last standing committee action on a bill and the House or Senate floor vote on the bill. When a bill receives more than one committee hearing, this step will ensure a brief opportunity for citizen input on the bill version sent for a floor vote.
• Allow at least one full day between free conference committee revisions to a bill and the House or Senate floor vote on that changed bill. Once again, this process change can create an opening for citizens to see the changes and be heard about how those changes may affect them and others.

For citizens who want to increase their political engagement, the League recommended:?

• Monitor each legislative session for opportunities to participate.
• Contact legislators any time legislation is rushed, limiting opportunities to participate.
• Support efforts to change these practices, joining with other groups in demanding that legislators follow their own rules — and change the rules as needed to strengthen opportunities for citizen participation. This messaging could be done via social media, petitions, letters-to-the-editor and calls or visits with legislators.
• Engage in peaceful demonstrations and protests.
• Vote for new representatives if the current ones ignore citizens or block citizen participation.

Jones said in the new conference that she corresponds frequently with lawmakers who give thoughtful responses. She added that they were “great examples of how to represent the people” and encouraged more of those interactions.?

Lawmakers work for the people they represent, Jones said.?

“When it gets to the point where it feels like citizens have to take on a second job to make sure that the people we hired to do the job are doing the job, something is amiss.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated Thursday afternoon with additional comments.?

Mike Johnson (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Back in July, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.

A federal court had recently granted a temporary injunction, in Missouri v. Biden, finding that the Biden administration had violated the First Amendment by coercing social media companies to remove content, related both to elections and the COVID-19 vaccine, that it deemed false and harmful.

The ruling is being appealed to the Supreme Court, which last month temporarily blocked the order. But one committee member wanted to press the advantage.

“What is disinformation?” asked Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La.

“Disinformation is inaccurate information…” Mayorkas began.

“Who determines what’s inaccurate?” Johnson interjected almost immediately. “Who determines what’s false? You understand the problem here?”

Moments later, Mayorkas testified that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, a unit of DHS whose activities were part of the case, focuses on fighting disinformation from foreign adversaries — speech that would likely enjoy fewer First Amendment protections than speech by Americans.

But Johnson was ready.

“No, sir,” Johnson said. “The court determined you and all of your cohorts made no distinction between domestic speech and foreign speech. So don’t stand there under oath and tell me that you only focused on … foreign actors. That’s not true.”

“I so, so, regret that I’m out of time,” Johnson concluded.

Johnson’s forceful performance lit up right-wing media, burnishing his credentials as a conservative stalwart and a fiercely effective Republican partisan.

This was hardly the first time that Johnson had put the Biden administration on the defensive over its efforts to fight online disinformation — false or misleading information that is deliberately spread to advance a political or ideological goal. In fact, in recent years, there appear to have been few national issues on which Johnson, who in October was elected by the GOP as speaker of the House, has played a more prominent role.

Johnson’s efforts have largely succeeded. Since 2020, the federal government and social media companies have scaled back their work to counter online disinformation — thanks in part, experts say, to the furious pushback from Johnson and other leading Republicans.

Disinformation specialists increasingly worry that voters in next year’s election may have to contend with a barrage of lies flowing freely online.

“It’s going to be a wild ride,” said Sam Wineburg, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, who studies how people respond to disinformation. “We are going to see a deluge of misinformation and … a great deal of confusion online.”

A spokesman for the speaker’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the growing concerns about election-related disinformation.

Pulling back on countering disinformation

In 2020, amid a flurry of online lies about both the COVID-19 pandemic and the presidential election, social media companies stepped up their efforts to curb disinformation, including labeling some of President Donald Trump’s tweets as misleading.

These initiatives, especially the platforms’ work to limit the spread of stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the election’s final weeks, spurred a backlash from conservatives. Though information from the laptop hasn’t been shown to significantly implicate President Joe Biden, the authenticity of the laptop itself has since been confirmed

The ensuing pressure campaign by congressional Republicans like Johnson, decrying what they call censorship and collusion by government and Big Tech, has led both the Biden administration and the platforms themselves to rein in their efforts to protect voters from disinformation.

Last year, DHS announced the Disinformation Governance Board, charged with coordinating efforts to identify and counter online disinformation. Weeks later, after a fierce Republican backlash, it shuttered the panel.

CISA, the DHS agency about which Johnson grilled Mayorkas in July, has stopped reaching out to social media companies to share information, NBC News recently reported. The same outlet also reported that the FBI recently put an indefinite hold on most briefings to social media companies about Russian, Iranian and Chinese influence campaigns. The bureau’s interactions with the platforms now must be pre-approved by government lawyers.

Another DHS program, Rumor Control, which provided quick responses to election disinformation on election night and beforehand, also appears to be on the wane, NPR reported.

The government’s retreat has upped the onus on social media companies to proactively monitor disinformation. But these efforts, too, are set to be less robust in 2024 than they were in 2020, after layoffs have reduced staffing on trust and safety teams.

Last year, Meta loosened constraints on political advertising to allow ads on Facebook and Instagram that question the legitimacy of the 2020 election, the Wall Street Journal recently reported. And X owner Elon Musk announced recently that he has eliminated the site’s elections integrity team, claiming it was “undermining election integrity.”

Experts suggest the more hands-off approach from the platforms is in part a response to the Republican outrage, which has left tech leaders reluctant to alienate powerful figures who may expand their control of the federal government just over a year from now.

“The platform leadership often felt that 2020 put them in a horrible position for potentially what the next administration might look like,” said Tim Harper, who runs the Elections and Democracy program at the Center for Democracy and Technology, which advocates for tech policies that promote democracy. “And so they’re a little bit more wary of what the political implications could be after the 2024 election.”

Meanwhile, technological advances, especially those involving generative AI, have made online disinformation much more sophisticated and harder to see through than in past elections.

“Think about where we were in 2016 and 2020,” said Wineburg, the Stanford disinformation expert. “The St. Petersburg labs spewing disinformation, often with spellings and tortured grammar — that’s gone. Just plug it into an LLM (a Large Language Model — an AI-driven algorithm that can convincingly generate human language text) and it’s going to look like it’s not only by a native speaker, but a native speaker who understands proper grammar.”

Johnson warned of ‘censorship industrial complex’

Since his ascension to the speaker job last month, Johnson’s leading role in the Republican pushback has received little attention. But, over the last year-and-a-half, he has used congressional hearings, legislation, and conservative media appearances to relentlessly warn about the dangers of what he has called the “censorship industrial complex.”

When Mayorkas announced the creation of the Disinformation Governance Board in April 2022, it was described as a working group with no operational authority. But conservatives were quick to paint it as an Orwellian scheme to censor political speech.

The far-right influencer Jack Posobiec, who has 1.7 million followers on X, called the panel a “Ministry of Truth” — language soon picked up by Johnson and other congressional Republicans.

“The Biden Administration’s decision to stand up a ‘Ministry of Truth,’ is dystopian in design, almost certainly unconstitutional, and clearly doomed from the start,” Johnson said in a press release announcing legislation he was introducing to defund the board. “The government has no role whatsoever in determining what constitutes truth or acceptable speech.”

A week later, in a sign that Republicans recognized the benefits of highlighting the issue, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy introduced his own version of Johnson’s bill, with Johnson as a co-sponsor.

Johnson and other Republicans also seized on the news that the board would be run by Nina Jankowicz, a disinformation scholar. They accused Jankowicz of calling the Hunter Biden laptop a Russian influence op.

“She’s supposed to be in charge of determining what is true and what is acceptable speech, and it’s just outrageous,” Johnson told Newsmax.

In fact, Jankowicz, while live-tweeting a 2020 presidential debate, had noted that Biden referred to a letter by former national security leaders stating their belief that the laptop was a Russian influence op. In the runup to the election, however, Jankowicz did elsewhere cast doubt on the laptop’s authenticity.

Jankowicz was targeted with abuse and death threats, and within weeks she had resigned. When, not long after, the board was shuttered entirely, it was perhaps Republicans’ most concrete victory on the issue.

But Johnson hasn’t let the subject drop. In March, he appeared on Fox News to discuss a subpoena issued to Jankowicz by a newly formed House subcommittee on weaponization of the federal government, chaired by Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, to which Johnson had been named.

“We have a lot of questions about the foundation of (the disinformation board),” Johnson said. “How were they going to determine what is so-called disinformation? What were they going to do with this? It’s pretty scary. We have to make sure that this never ever happens again.”

Later that same month, the subcommittee held a hearing aimed at promoting Missouri v. Biden, the lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana that challenged the Biden administration’s efforts to work with social media companies to control disinformation.

“The executive branch has undertaken a broad campaign to censor the American people,” Johnson declared. “That’s the headline. That’s the takeaway today.”

In May, at another hearing of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, this one focused on the FBI, Johnson said the bureau “worked with the social media platforms hand in hand, almost as partners over the last two election cycles, to censor and silence conservatives online that they disagreed with.”

At yet another hearing In July, not long after the federal court ruling that the bureau and other agencies had violated the First Amendment, Johnson grilled FBI director Christopher Wray.

Like Mayorkas, Wray said his agency focused on disinformation from foreign adversaries.

“That’s not accurate,” Johnson jumped in. “You need to read this court opinion because you’re in charge of enforcing it … (It) wasn’t just foreign adversaries, sir, it was American citizens. How do you answer for this?”

That same month, Johnson teamed up with Jordan and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to introduce more legislation on the subject. The Free Speech Protection Act would bar executive branch employees from censoring protected speech and impose “mandatory severe penalties” on executive branch employees who censor protected speech. The bill has not advanced in the House.

“The dystopian scheme by the government, Big Tech, academia, and many NGOs to censor American citizens and silence conservative voices is far-reaching and dangerous,” said Johnson.

The outrage generated by Johnson and his colleagues has had an impact. As? the 2024 election looms, experts say, those looking to undermine elections by using false information to confuse voters online are in a stronger position than ever — not least because they will have had four more years to perfect their craft.

“There are people who are highly incentivized to harm our democracy by raising doubt about elections, and they have been actively organizing and raising money over the last three years,” David Becker, the founder and executive director for the Center on Election Innovation and Research, which works with election officials to improve election administration and build voter trust, recently told States Newsroom. “In 2020, those that were trying to undermine that election were largely making it up as they went along with crazy legal theories and chasing bizarre pieces of disinformation. They are going to be better prepared.”

This report has been corrected to more accurately reflect the nature of Nina Jankowicz’s public comments about the Hunter Biden laptop.

Attendees react to early election results at an election night party on Nov. 7, 2023 in Columbus, Ohio. The results of this year’s state and local contests, advocates say, could make future elections, including the 2024 presidential contest, freer and fairer.?(Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal)

The big news out of Tuesday’s elections was wins for Democrats and for reproductive rights in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

But small “d” democracy also had a good night:

• Virginians elected pro-voting majorities in both chambers, stymieing efforts to pass restrictive new voting laws.
• Ohioans turned out in large numbers to pass two popular ballot measures, showing direct democracy is alive and well despite a concerted campaign in the state to restrict it.
• Pennsylvanians rejected a state Supreme Court candidate who has baselessly stoked fear about voter fraud.
• Two top Kentucky officials who have offered a model of how to work across party lines to expand voter access were both easily reelected.
• And five cities supported a fast-growing democratic reform aimed at producing outcomes that better reflect voter preferences.

The result, advocates say, could be to make future elections, including the 2024 presidential contest, freer and fairer.

“Americans sent a clear message that they reject MAGA extremism and want leaders who will stand up for our fundamental freedoms and our democracy,” said Christina Harvey, executive director of Stand Up America, a progressive pro-democracy group. “Together with last year’s wins in secretary of state races across the country, these victories help build a firewall for democracy in 2024.”

Virginia

Virginia Republicans last year passed bills through the House of Delegates to ban ballot drop-boxes and end same-day voter registration. Had they won control of the Senate Tuesday, those measures could very well have become law — and they could have significantly hampered voter access.

Instead, Democrats held the Senate and even flipped the House, ensuring that anti-voter legislation in the state is dead.

The competitive races for both houses also demonstrated the success of the redistricting reforms approved by the state in December 2021, advocates said, after a Republican gerrymander had been in place for a decade.

“Fair maps are essential to a functioning democracy, and they are critical in this moment to beat back … attempts to roll back voters’ fundamental rights,” former Attorney General Eric Holder, the chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, said in a statement.

Ohio

Ohio’s results were good news for democracy for a different reason.

Republicans in the state had worked to restrict and complicate Ohio’s ballot initiative process, aiming to make it harder for voters to pass popular measures, including abortion protections. It was part of a national effort to create obstacles to popular democracy.

First, Ohio Republicans put an initiative on the ballot that would have raised the threshold required to pass ballot measures to 60%. Voters overwhelmingly rejected that in August.

Then state officials approved what reproductive rights supporters called misleading and biased language for the abortion measure’s ballot summary, which told voters that the amendment would “always allow an unborn child to be aborted.”

Nonetheless, voters approved the measure, as well as another ballot initiative legalizing marijuana. In doing so, they made clear that Ohio’s process for allowing its citizens to directly pass laws and amend the state constitution — which has often allowed for the passage of popular reforms that lawmakers had kept bottled up — remains viable and robust.

Nearly 4 million voters turned out in an odd-numbered year — nearly as many as in last year’s midterms, when governor and U.S. Senate races were on the ballot.

Ohio’s legislative leaders have limited power to weaken or undo the abortion rights measure because it’s a constitutional amendment. Still, they said they were willing to go against the will of voters to try.

“The legislature has multiple paths that we will explore to continue to protect innocent life,” said House Speaker Jason Stephens.

Despite the high turnout, voter advocates said there were a few signs of problems caused by a new voting law that stiffened ID requirements and put new restrictions on mail voting.

They said poll monitors at Ohio State University in Columbus reported many students saying they hadn’t received their mail ballot in time, and were forced to vote provisionally. And, advocates said, many voters, especially students, didn’t know that their ballots needed to be physically postmarked — not just dropped in a mailbox — by the day before Election Day.

Pennsylvania

Meanwhile, Pennsylvanians helped boost the prospects for future fair elections. They elected Democrat Daniel McCaffery to the state Supreme Court, rejecting Republican Carolyn Carluccio.

On the campaign trail earlier this year, Carluccio stoked unfounded fears about widespread fraud.

“We should be able to go to the polls and understand that our vote counts and understand that there’s not going to be some hanky-panky going on in the back,” she said.

Carluccio also said she would “welcome” a challenge to a Pennsylvania law that expanded mail voting, adding that the measure has been “very bad for our commonwealth.”

Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court ruled that mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates could be rejected. Carluccio’s defeat, which gives Democrats a 5-2 majority on the court, makes it less likely that it will issue similar anti-voter rulings next year, in what’s likely to be a pivotal state.

McCaffery has said he supports efforts to increase participation, and that he backs a 2018 Supreme Court decision striking down the state’s gerrymander.

Kentucky

In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear and Secretary of State Michael Adams were both easily reelected. Beshear, a Democrat, and Adams, a Republican, worked closely together in 2020 to ensure an accessible election in the face of the pandemic.

Then in 2021, they teamed up to convince the GOP-controlled legislature to make some of those changes permanent, creating early-voting centers and expanding the period for mail voting.

“I do think it was good overall for public confidence in the election to have a D and an R at the table together working it out, appearing jointly at press conferences, because that meant that it was unlikely that one side would claim the other side was going to rig the rules,” Adams said recently. “The Democrats saw the governor, and the Republicans saw me. And so, both sides thought, ‘Well, this must be fair because my guy’s at the table, right?’”

Local elections

Finally, a democratic reform that backers say leads to fairer elections also fared well. Voters in three Michigan cities — Kalamazoo, East Lansing, and Royal Oak — approved the use of ranked choice voting for their elections. Meanwhile, Minnetonka, Minnesota, voted to keep RCV, while Easthampton, Massachusetts, voted to expand it.

RCV, which has been adopted by Maine, Alaska, and Nevada, as well as numerous local governments, allows voters to rank candidates, ensuring that the winner better represents voter preferences.

“American voters are dissatisfied with our politics, and in 27 city ballot measures in a row, they’ve said yes to better choices, better campaigns, and better representation,” Deb Otis, director of research and policy at FairVote, which advocates for RCV, said in a statement. “Everywhere it’s used, voters like and understand RCV, taking advantage of the opportunity to vote honestly and express more choices.”

Mississippi

It wasn’t all good news for democracy.

In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, was reelected despite a strong challenge from Democrat Brandon Presley. Reeves signed a law this year — later blocked by a court — that banned third parties from collecting mail ballots, making it harder to vote for some seniors and people with disabilities, according to voter advocates.

Another law signed by Reeves makes it easier to remove people from the voter rolls, making it more likely that eligible voters could be purged.

Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson also was returned to office. Watson successfully fought efforts to have the state’s ban on voting for people with certain convictions overturned. In 2021, Watson criticized the Biden administration’s efforts to promote voter registration, saying they will encourage “woke college and university students” to cast a ballot.

“You’ve got an uninformed citizen who may not be prepared and ready to vote,” Watson said.

Voters waited their turn at Harrison Elementary School in Lexington Tuesday morning. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Matthew Mueller)

In downtown Lexington, lines of voters had formed by midmorning at the Harrison Elementary School polling site.

Greeting and guiding them was poll worker Eugene Young, 72, who said his military service had contributed to his conviction about the importance of voting.

“I’m a Vietnam veteran. I fought for this,” Young said surveying the Election Day scene. Young, who is Black, said, “I fought for a country I didn’t have freedom in myself. I want to make sure everyone (has) a choice.”

Young conversed with many of the voters, some of whom he knew from his neighborhood and through his active volunteering, including with the Bluegrass Trust and Salvation Army.

Residents of Connie Griffith Manor, a nearby public housing apartment complex for seniors, made their way to the polling site, some with help from volunteers organized by Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a progressive grassroots organization.

“I’ve been voting ever since I’ve been old enough to vote,” said Elaine Marshall, 68, a resident of the apartment complex. “Because I was always told that your vote makes a difference, and to me it really does. I’ve been voting a long time, and I’m about to turn 69 years old.”

Tayna Fogle, 63, who represents Lexington’s District 1 on the Urban County Council and is lead organizer for Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, was on hand to help apartment residents cross the street and walk to the school to cast their votes.

“We got some residents that have been voting 50 and 60 years that live here in this facility,” Fogle said.

Turnout at Harrison Elementary was more brisk than in the May primary, poll workers said. Chris Kelly, an election judge, said 193 voters had cast ballots by 9:18 a.m.

Nearby at the Salvation Army, home to Fayette County’s precinct A143, voting got off to a slow start. This did not dampen the attitude of Fayette County judge and polling site volunteer Mark Sok.

Sok said that he has been working on Election Day for 17 years.

“I vote every election. I have for my entire adult life,” Sok said. “I just believe in the process. I think that’s really what makes America great.”

He said being part of it is fun, and he interacts with great people all day.

One of these individuals is Ronita Taylor, 61, a Lexington native who has voted for the last 20 years and said voting gives people a say in the government.

She said that she hasn’t seen changes she’s hoped for within the past three years related to gun control or solving murders and assaults. “I just hope we get a good turnout, and everyone voices their opinion and comes out and really makes this election count,” Taylor said.

To the north, in neighboring Scott County, some voters were skeptical about whether politicians truly care about the people.

Adam Hawkins, 52, said he owns a small business, Oh Sew Cute, in downtown Georgetown and hopes that whoever wins the election can control inflation, as it affects small business owners like himself.

“It hasn’t affected me terribly yet, but it will,” Hawkins said. “I don’t raise my prices like most people with a small business would.”

Kentucky voters have until 6 p.m. on Nov. 7 to continue to cast their ballots, according to the State Board of Elections.

The U.S Capitol Building ahead of inaugural ceremonies for President Joe Biden on Jan. 18, 2021 in Washington, D.C. A year from now, the nation’s voters will decide another presidential contest — likely one that pits the same two candidates against each other.?(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

The last time America elected a president, it led to a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol and a failed coup that gravely damaged the political system and marred the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in U.S. history.

A year from now, the nation’s voters will decide another presidential contest — likely one that pits the same two candidates against each other.

Despite a slew of arrests and felony convictions stemming from the events of Jan. 6, 2021, there’s little sign that those who attacked democracy last time have significantly moderated their outlook.

Former President Donald Trump has warned that, if restored to power, he’ll seek retribution against his enemies. An unrepentant election denier runs one house of Congress. Threats of political violence, now commonplace, are said to have affected key voting decisions made by elected officials. And 3 out of 4 respondents to a recent poll think American democracy is at risk in the election, with nearly a quarter saying patriots may have to use violence to save the country.

“The United States electoral process, and indeed American democracy itself, is under great stress,” warned a September report by a group of election experts for the Safeguarding Democracy Project. “No longer can we take for granted that people will accept election results as legitimate.”

Since the tumult of January 2021, politicians, advocacy groups, and media outlets have rightly warned about a range of threats to a free and fair 2024 election — from problems with voter access and election administration to the potential for violence and chaos, or outright subversion of results, in the post-election period.

Perhaps less noticed has been the progress made toward shoring up the system — chiefly in the form of federal legislation making it harder to subvert a presidential election.

That’s why, with a year before voting culminates next November, it’s crucial to take stock of where the nation stands, and to identify where, in the view of election experts and voter advocates, the major vulnerabilities remain.

Election subversion

Perhaps the fear that looms largest in many observers’ minds is a repeat in some form of the failed, multi-pronged plot to overturn the election that culminated with the Jan. 6, 2021 attack — but one that succeeds this time.

For some, the recent ascension of Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., to the role of speaker of the House adds to the sense of anxiety.

The New York Times has called Johnson “the most important architect” of congressional Republicans’ objections to the 2020 election results. Soon after the election, Johnson rallied 125 other GOP representatives to sign a legal brief arguing that President Joe Biden’s win should be overturned.

The Louisiana Republican then led the effort to get Republicans to refuse to certify the results, and he voted against certification in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

Johnson has never expressed regret for his role in the bid to overturn the results, or acknowledged that Biden was the legitimate winner.

“Johnson’s record on democracy is overtly dangerous, and his newfound power presents an acute threat to American elections,” an Oct. 26 email from a Democratic group of chief election officials, the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, warned reporters.

There’s little doubt that having a leading election denier running the House is damaging to U.S. democracy in myriad ways — not least by further mainstreaming a dangerous ideology.

But, asked at an Oct. 25 news conference whether he was afraid that Johnson would try to overturn the election, Biden answered: “No.”

“Just like I was not worried that the last guy would be able to overturn the election,” Biden continued. “They had about 60 lawsuits and they all went to the Supreme Court and every time they lost. I understand the Constitution.”

Election law experts largely agree, noting that the speaker has no formal role in the certification process. And, they point out, it takes a full vote of both chambers to actually reject electoral votes — making it highly unlikely to succeed. For all the justified concern about what happened in 2020, no objection to a state’s electoral votes got more than seven votes in the Senate.

As important, experts say, the Electoral Count Reform Act, approved last year in response to Jan. 6, makes it all but impossible for Congress to overturn an election, no matter who’s in charge.

“The ability of Congress to interfere in the certification of a presidential election was already limited,” said Adav Noti, senior vice president and legal director of the Campaign Legal Center, which helped push for the ECRA. With the reform in place, Noti added, ”it’s even harder now for Congress to do anything other than properly certify the election.”

The ECRA, which reformed the outdated Electoral Count Act of 1887, made clear that the vice president’s role in certification is purely ministerial. He or she has no authority to reject a state’s electoral votes, as Jan. 6 rioters hoped to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to do.

More important, the ECRA laid out a judicial process for states to resolve disputes over electoral votes before they reach Congress. And it barred members of Congress from objecting to electoral votes that have already been approved by that judicial process — ensuring, essentially, that federal courts, not partisan politicians in Washington or the states, are in control.

That same provision of the law also addressed another avenue for subversion: State lawmakers or officials could corrupt their state’s vote count long before Congress meets, by changing election rules after the fact or just appointing electors directly.

Trump and his allies schemed to do that in 2020, by pressing legislatures to declare a “failed election” and substitute their own slates. Since then, lawmakers in Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Georgia, among other states, have moved to gain more control over elections, raising concerns about the possibility for state-level subversion.

But under the ECRA, states must appoint their electors according to state laws that existed before the election. That makes state-level subversion much harder.

“There was a fear that state legislatures would come in afterwards and appoint the electors they want anyway,” said Edward B. Foley, an election law professor at Ohio State University and an expert on the Electoral College. “That can’t be done under the ECRA.”

Chaos and delay

But though the law on paper is clear, Foley said he worries about a massive glut of election litigation, all filed in the immediate pre- and post-election period in one close, pivotal state.

The result, and perhaps the intention, could be to overwhelm the courts, potentially delaying decisions until a state risks missing the Dec. 11 “safe harbor” deadline. That could mean its electoral votes might not be counted.

“The American judiciary is not built for thousands and thousands of hours of attention to election matters,” said Foley. “So I think there are reasons to fear that something really gets out of hand in terms of litigation, and you start bumping up against those deadlines.”

That threat could be exacerbated by a little-noticed aspect of the Supreme Court’s June ruling in a major elections case, Moore v. Harper.

The court rejected the claim, pushed by conservatives, that state legislatures have essentially free rein to make election rules, unconstrained by state courts. But, as the election law scholar Rick Hasen has noted, the justices did give themselves the power to second-guess state courts if they decide state courts went too far in regulating an election.

This authority, Hasen has written, is going to be “hanging out there, a new tool to be used to rein in especially voter-protective rulings of state courts. Every expansion of voting rights in the context of federal litigation will now yield a potential second federal lawsuit with uncertain results.”

Those statutory deadlines that Foley worries about also concern David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research.

He warns that election deniers — including grifters looking to exploit Trump voters’ fears of a stolen election for financial gain — will be even more effective this time at sowing disinformation if their candidate loses on election night. That could lead to even more, and more unpredictable, political violence.

“Instead of having it be focused on just one place at one time — the Capitol on January 6th — we could see it focused on the counting process, the certification process, on the meeting of the Electoral College, at various points in time in various places,” said Becker, a leading expert on election administration. “From talking to people around the country, there is a concern about efforts to basically undermine the will of the people.”

That kind of chaos could bog things down enough that the election’s statutory deadlines — the safe harbor deadline, the meeting of the Electoral College six days later, and the Jan. 6 certification by Congress — come into play and force a halt to the process. Indeed, Becker noted, that appears to have been part of the Trump team’s strategy last time around.

“The effort to string this out and delay until the winning candidate has his hand on the Bible on the steps of the Capitol — that’s almost certainly going to happen,” said Becker. “They’re going to do everything they can to slow down the mechanics of elections.”

Voter suppression

It may seem quaint in an era when there are fears about outright subversion. But perhaps the simplest way a free and fair election might be compromised is through old-fashioned voter suppression — something that many Democrats would argue already happened not too long ago.

An October report by the Voting Rights Lab, a voter advocacy group that tracks voting laws across the country, found that voters will face “significant new restrictions” in four key swing states: Georgia, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. (A fifth swing state, Pennsylvania, will have both restrictive and expansive new voting laws in place.)

“Swing state voters often determine the outcome of our presidential elections,” said Liz Avore, a senior policy adviser for the group. “Millions of those voters will see new rules in 2024 — many restricting access to popular options like early and mail voting. How they respond could just be the difference in a tight presidential race.”

In all five of those states, it will be harder to vote by mail than it was in 2020.

North Carolina might have gone furthest in restricting mail voting. A strict photo ID law, passed in 2018 but newly approved by the state Supreme Court, requires that mail-in ballots, which already had to be notarized or signed by two witnesses, must also include a copy of a photo ID.

A different law passed this year by the state requires that mail ballots be received by 7:30 p.m. on Election Day, where previously they only had to be postmarked by Election Day and received by three days after. In 2020, 11,000 ballots arrived at election offices in those three days, according to figures provided by the Brennan Center.

In Georgia, the state with the smallest margin of victory last time, new rules require voters to provide a specific ID number both when they apply for and when they return a mail-in ballot. There are also tighter rules on when and where ballot drop boxes will be available. And residents are now allowed to challenge the eligibility of an unlimited number of voters, potentially overloading election officials with meritless challenges. Last year, 92,000 registrations were reportedly challenged.

Wisconsin, another state that could be pivotal, also made mail voting harder. State Supreme Court rulings have banned ballot drop boxes and barred third parties from returning mail ballots — restrictions that weren’t in place in 2020.

But that might not be the last word. The court now has a liberal majority, and a new lawsuit seeks to reinstate drop boxes, as well as expanding access to mail voting in other ways.

In Pennsylvania, as in North Carolina, mail-in ballots must now be received by Election Day to be counted. In 2020, in an accommodation to COVID-19, they only needed to be postmarked by Election Day.

Still, that restrictive change could be canceled out by an expansive one: This year, the state began automatically registering voters who have contact with the state DMV unless they opt out, making it easier to get on the rolls.

And New Hampshire will have some of the most antiquated and restrictive voting rules in the nation next year. Thanks to the expiration of COVID-19-era accommodations that temporarily expanded access to mail-in and early voting, most voters will have no other option than voting in person on Election Day — something that’s the case in only two other states.

It’s always hard to gauge just how many voters will be affected by new voting laws. Indeed, scholars increasingly appear to agree that changes to voting rules affect outcomes only in the very closest races.

But Biden won Georgia in 2020 by fewer than 12,000 votes, and Wisconsin by just over 20,000. If those or any of the other states with restrictive new laws are equally close next year, it could be hard to rule out the possibility that these measures — which are generally thought to affect more Democratic voters than Republican ones — made the difference.

That likely wouldn’t trigger the kind of national crisis that a conflict over electoral votes at the Capitol would. But it would compromise the election, and further undermine democracy, nonetheless.

Still, too much hand-wringing over the laws could be counter-productive.

Becker suggested that the biggest impact of these restrictive laws could be to deter infrequent voters by conveying the message — in most cases, false — that voting is arduous and there’s an organized effort to stop you from going to the polls.

“Those messages are going to make it less likely for an infrequent voter to show up,” said Becker, noting that Trump allies’ claims that the system had been rigged by widespread illegal voting may have worked to depress Republican turnout in the 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs.

“The best way to suppress a vote is to get the voter to suppress themselves.”

Election administration troubles

It’s worth remembering that, despite the chaos and violence of the post-election period in 2020-21, the voting itself confounded some predictions by going remarkably smoothly.

Facing the twin challenges of a pandemic and a concerted campaign by the incumbent to sow distrust over fraud, election administrators nationwide provided an accessible, secure process that featured the highest turnout since the 1890s — a genuine triumph of democracy.

Still, three years later, the U.S. elections infrastructure is under strain. A mass exodus of local election officials, caused in part by a barrage of threats and intimidation from denialists, has made headlines and sparked concern.

Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Virginia, and Texas are all said to have had top officials leave. And a recent report by the good-government group Issue One found that 160 chief local election officials in 11 Western states — around 40% of all chief local election officials in those states — have left their jobs since November 2020.

The report singled out the region’s two swing states, Arizona and Nevada — both hotspots for denialism and threats of violence against administrators — as especially hard hit by the departures.

“As a former county recorder myself, I can attest that the pre-2020 world for election administrators is gone,” Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes said at a Nov. 1 U.S. Senate hearing. “We don’t feel safe in our work because of the harassment and threats that are based in lies.”

Fontes, a Democrat, called the issue a “threat to American democracy.”

But, while everyone agrees threats and harassment targeting election officials are a serious concern, fears about the impact on 2024 may be overblown.

Becker, who works closely with election officials across the country, noted that in both states, the key counties that have seen departures have found effective replacements. In Arizona, both Maricopa and Pima counties have elected recorders who have prioritized nonpartisan election management and voter access. And when the respected elections director for Clark County, Nevada stepped down, he was replaced by a deputy who had worked in the office for 25 years.

“Although I have many concerns about the election, one of them is not whether the election officials are going to manage an accessible, secure process,” said Becker. “I think election officials will do what they have always done, which is to rise above this and provide an easy convenient way for all eligible voters to vote, and a transparent method for counting those ballots that stands up to scrutiny.”

Still, the task of administrators could be complicated by the presence at the polls of self-appointed voter fraud watchdogs. Responding to Trump’s lies about illegal voting, conservative activists are mobilizing to scour the voting process for evidence of irregularities.

One nationwide coalition of groups organized by a top Trump election lawyer, the Election Integrity Network, is working to recruit and train activists to serve as poll-watchers and on local elections boards. In Virginia’s 2021 election — the first contest where the group was active — it trained 45,000 poll watchers and officials and covered 85% of polling places, it has said.

Voting rights advocates worry that aggressive poll-watchers could intimidate voters or overwhelm officials with meritless voter challenges, slowing down the voting process.

Democrats are blunter. “The goal is to disenfranchise enough voters that they can win the election,” a staffer for the Virginia Democrats told the New York Times in reference to the group’s activities in the state’s current election.

Yet more potential problems

These are far from the only things that could go wrong. One wildcard that’s causing concern is the possibility of a “contingent election”.

The “No Labels” party has launched a well-funded campaign in support of a bipartisan “unity ticket’. If it succeeds in winning one or more states, the upshot could be to deny either major-party candidate 270 electoral votes. Even if No Labels fails to win a state, an Electoral College tie would also leave both candidates one vote short of 270.

If no one reaches 270, the Constitution requires Congress to choose the president. But no law governs how that process would work. The result, two advocates for Protect Democracy wrote recently, based on conversations with constitutional scholars, would be “chaos and crisis.”

Another threat that’s causing alarm among some election security advocates stems from the multi-state effort by Trump allies to access software used in voting machines. In Colorado, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan, activists worked with election officials or law enforcement to gain access to the software.

Most experts say it isn’t likely that they could change votes at a scale large enough to affect the outcome of a presidential election — in part because every swing state now uses paper ballots as a backup so that results can be verified.

The more realistic worry is that hackers could draw attention to a breach in order to stoke anger and controversy, giving the election loser additional ammunition to claim that the result was rigged. That might not subvert results, but would help undermine the election’s legitimacy in the eyes of some voters.

One leading democracy advocate has a very different fear: that the election will be legitimate, but that its result will nonetheless put our system of government at risk.

“We are not out of the woods, but that danger (of election subversion) has been greatly reduced,” Ian Bassin, the founder and executive director of Protect Democracy, and the recent recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant, said in an October podcast interview.

“The bigger danger is that an autocrat will simply win the 2024 election.”

A drone monitors a restricted area. Election denier Mike Lindell is touting the use of drone-mounted devices to monitor polling places. (Getty Images)

The Kenton County Board of Elections unanimously voted to explicitly disallow the presence of wireless monitoring devices at polling places on Election Day.?

The meeting’s topic came as the result of discussions that Kenton County Board of Election Chair Gabrielle Summe had at a recent county clerks meeting, where she heard about My Pillow Founder and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell’s efforts to hawk a device he contends can detect if a voting machine is connected to the internet.

“These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night,” said Summe, the Kenton County clerk.

“I just want to have a prepared way of handling this,” Summe added later in the meeting.?

Uneasily dubbed “WMDs” or “wireless monitoring devices,” the devices are about the size of a hardback novel and can be attached to flying robotic drones or carried by hand. Lindell first presented the device at a right-wing election conspiracy event in August, where he claimed that the devices could be used to uncover election fraud.?

“We’ve been told a lie over years now that the machines are not on the internet,” Lindell said at the event. “… What if I told you that there was a device that’s been made for the first time in history that could tell you that that machine was online?”

Lindell said the devices could be attached to flying drones and flown around polling places to scan the area for Wi-Fi signals and the devices connected to them. He turned one of the devices on at the event, which seemingly detected the audience members’ phone hot spots and other local signals before sorting them into categories. A projector showed the results on the wall behind Lindell.

Lindell claimed that the device would then send the collected data for additional analysis at a “command center” in an undisclosed location.?

It’s unclear from the video alone if the devices can actually detect Wi-Fi signals or if it was a contrivance of the presentation, but the board members all agreed that the usage of such devices at a polling place would be in clear violation of Kentucky law.?

“We can’t allow any chance of interference with the election,” said Kenton County Sheriff Chuck Korzenborn.?

Broadly speaking, photography and other media capture is not allowed at polling locations. Voters are allowed to bring in their smart phones to polling places, and they can take selfies with their ballots. News outlets are also allowed limited use of photography, but most other forms of media capture are illegal.?

Kentucky Revised Statute 117.236 states plainly:?

“No election officer, voter, or other person permitted by law within the voting room, except for challengers appointed under KRS 117.315, shall use paper, telephone, a personal telecommunications device, or a computer or other information technology system for the purpose of creating a checkoff list or otherwise recording the identity of voters within the voting room, except for the official use of the precinct signature roster that is furnished or approved by the State Board of Elections and is otherwise permitted by law.”

The election board will post this law and other prohibitions outside of polling places on Election Day to ensure that voters are apprised of the laws against election interference.?

“You can self take a selfie of yourself with your ballot. That’s it,” said Republican Board of Elections Representative Scott Kimmich. “Nothing else can be photographed. Nothing else can be recorded. And people need to know that. Otherwise, it’s voter intimidation or tampering with the election outcome, and they will be prosecuted.”

Election conspiracy theorists like Lindell have argued that voting machines, contrary to official statements, are connected to the internet, which allows nefarious agents to falsify election results. President Joe Biden’s victory against against former President Donald Trump in the 2020 election is a particular focal point for election conspiracies.?

Although individual cases of voter fraud do occur, most large-scale conspiracy theories that Lindell and his allies like to throw around have been discredited. Still, the theories continue to hold appeal in the right-wing of the Republican Party, and even some local candidates, such as former Erlanger Council Member Steve Knipper, who lost the GOP nomination for Kentucky secretary of state to incumbent Michael Adams this year, have openly endorsed claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.?

Voting machine vendors vary from county to county, but each vendor must pass strict federal and state guidelines before they can be used. Per Kentucky statue, all voting machines in the commonwealth are air-gapped, meaning they lack the technology for internet connectivity. The only three vendors certified in Kentucky are Hart InterCivic, Election Systems & Software and MicroVote. Kenton County uses Electronic Systems & Software machines, the marketing materials of which state they’re never connected to the internet.?

“We all feel very confident that none of our equipment is connected to the Internet or can be accessed by the Internet,” Summe said.?

In spite of this, the board members were aware that most polling places as well as some public places have Wi-Fi infrastructure.?

“That would be kind of hard not to say that any facility that has Wi-Fi available is not going to show up on a device that says there’s an internet connection,” Summe said. “So what is the true purpose of this?”

Summe and others thought that these devices, if they work, could be used to collect data and other information from voters’ smart phones.?

“That’s when I was concerned because the more I thought about it, I thought, well, is it going to interfere with what happens on election day?” Summe said. “Is it intended to modify something? Is it designed to come out with a specific result to prove something…?”

The board concluded that an official statement explicitly disallowing the use of the machines was warranted in case someone was caught trying to use one or if someone asked a poll worker if they could bring one into a polling place.?

The board canceled their normal meeting for next month due to its proximity to Election Day, but the board members will be available to the public all day on Nov. 7 to deal with any issues that may arise.?

To see deadlines on voting and get instructions on the different ways to vote, visit the Kenton County Board of Elections website. The final day to request a mail-in absentee ballot is Oct. 24, 2023.

This article is republished from LINK nky.

Alonzo Malone, who spent 27 years blocked from voting by the state of Kentucky, is now helping others register to vote. (Photo by Alex Burness)

This story first appeared in Bolts and is reprinted with permission.

Alonzo Malone Jr. says he felt “less than human” during the 27 years the state of Kentucky barred him from voting.

Malone lost his voting rights, along with his freedom and a slew of other civil liberties, in 1989 when he was convicted of a felony in his late 30s and sent to prison for three years. He fell into addiction and homelessness upon release and was sent back to prison in 1998 to serve two more years. After his second release from prison, he filed a petition to regain his voting rights, and as it languished he became active in advocating for the voting rights of others. He’d been sober and free for 16 years when, in 2016, then-Governor Matt Bevin finally restored his right to vote.

“I felt human again,” Malone said when we met in early September at the Lexington Roots & Heritage Festival, a large annual celebration of the city’s Black community, where he circulated through the crowd with a clipboard to register people to vote. “I can remember on Election Day in 2008, Barack Obama being elected. I just felt so discouraged. I could pay the taxes for the salaries of those who were making laws, but I could not cast a vote.”

Until 2019, Kentucky disenfranchised all residents convicted of any felony for life. People who hoped to regain their rights had to seek an expungement — an expensive procedure that only applies to a narrow subset of felony offenses — or they had to directly petition the governor for an individual pardon. These pardons were rarely issued: Bevin restored voting rights for only about 1,500 people during his term in office, among the more than 300,000 in the state who were disenfranchised at the time.

The outlook changed dramatically for Kentuckians with felonies in 2019, when Democrat Andy Beshear entered office with what he called a “moral responsibility” to help others like Malone. Two days after his inauguration, Beshear issued a sweeping executive order to automatically restore voting rights for people convicted in Kentucky of nonviolent crimes once they finish all parts of their sentence, including parole or probation. The order instantly restored voting rights to about 180,000 Kentuckians and sliced the state’s disenfranchised population in half.

But in practice, this massive expansion of voter eligibility has not translated into a wave of newly-enfranchised Kentuckians actually heading to the polls. In the 2022 midterm election, three years on from the executive order, only about 7% of people whose voting rights were restored by Beshear’s order actually cast ballots, according to the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table, a voting rights organization. That’s compared to 42 percent of the overall electorate.

Part of the blame, Kentucky’s advocates say, lies with a Beshear administration that did little to notify people affected by the order. This inaction has inspired Kentuckians like Malone to step in and inform people who are eligible to vote but may not realize it. Their project has kicked into higher gear recently, ahead of a critical November election that, as I reported last month, could lead to a reversal of Beshear’s order and a return to blanket disenfranchisement of anyone convicted of a felony.

A coalition of activists and nonprofit organizations have been using public records and word of mouth to identify people whose rights were restored, traversing the state to tell those people they have the right to vote and to encourage them to exercise it. In addition to door-to-door canvassing, this coalition scours social media, meets people in barber shops and churches, in parks and county jails, and at public events like this Lexington festival.

“I go to the laundromat. I go to the grocery stores,” said Malone, who estimates that he has personally registered more than 500 voters this election cycle alone. He is active with Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, a statewide nonprofit that favors expansion of voting rights.

He added, “If I’m at the gas station, I always keep voter registrations in my car at any time, and I don’t have a problem pulling them out. I go to car washes. Anywhere I can.”

He and other activists doing this work say they constantly encounter people whose rights were restored by Beshear’s 2019 order but still don’t know it. “It’s a disgrace,” Malone said, that four years later this is still the case.

The Lexington festival is just getting going as the sun sets on a beautiful evening. R&B music blares and fragrant barbecue smoke billows from food trucks while Malone stares out to the growing parade passing by. “There are many Kentuckians who have felonies who are walking around and do not know that their rights are restored. It is my aspiration to talk to everybody here tonight,” Malone said, before heading out into the crowd, clipboard in hand.

On March 4, 2020, a few months after signing the order to restore voting rights, Beshear held a press conference in Frankfort to tout a new online search tool people with felony convictions could use to determine their voting eligibility. This, the governor said, showed he was delivering on one of his top priorities: “Restoring the right to vote to Kentuckians that have done wrong in the past but are doing right now.”

Beshear said during the press conference that his Christian faith teaches him forgiveness, and implored journalists in attendance to help him spread news of the search tool’s launch. “We should welcome those Kentuckians back into our neighborhoods and allow them to fully participate, to recognize that they are full human beings deserving respect,” Beshear said. But his order still excluded about 152,000 Kentuckians who weren’t afforded the same forgiveness after completing felony sentences, largely because they were convicted of violent crimes, according to The Sentencing Project, a national research and advocacy organization.

A reporter at the press conference asked Beshear whether the state would itself take on the task of informing the tens of thousands of people whose rights were restored by his order. “Our job in government is, I believe, to make the opportunity there,” he responded.

The coalition of formerly incarcerated people and other activists now working to finish the job has tallied more than 89,000 people with felony convictions who had previously been blocked from voting and who have registered since 2019 — nearly 60 percent of those affected by Beshear’s order. They say the state could have helped reach many more people by, say, renting billboard space or placing ads broadcasting the news of Beshear’s restoration order. At the very least, they say Beshear’s administration could have attempteed to reach everyone whose rights were restored at the time of the order.

These coalition members also say it is no surprise that turnout has been so low among Kentuckians who were once barred from voting. “It’s almost like a secret,” said Teresa Forbes-Lopez, who works with Malone and says she was drawn to this activism through her interest in education reform. “The government is not pushing it out. It’s like they want to hold it back. When you let a person out, you should say, ‘Here are all the things you need to do,’ and that’s not happening.”

Beshear declined my request for an interview to talk about rights restoration and the limited impact of his order nearly four years ago. A spokesperson for his Justice and Public Safety Cabinet sent an email highlighting the online search tool that debuted in 2020, and also noting that Kentucky gives people leaving prison a printed “notice of restoration” that contains information on voter eligibility and registration.

Organizers working to ensure people covered by Beshear’s order know of their rights say they’re energized by the activism around rights restoration, but lament that it is so needed.

“So many people tell you, daily, that they don’t know they can register to vote. So many of them are eligible and don’t know,” said Lexington’s Jessica Clark, who got involved in voter outreach through her church. “They are so amazed to know they have their citizenship back, that they can vote.”

“They’re surprised, very surprised,” said Roseileen Fitts of Louisville, who is formerly incarcerated and remains disenfranchised. “Some people don’t even believe you when you tell them.”

Fitts, 32, is a mom, owns a cleaning business, and for years has been a frequent volunteer in Louisville, including mentoring the children of incarcerated parents through the YMCA. Now in recovery from addiction, she’d like to think she’s the sort of person Beshear had in mind when he spoke in 2020 about people “doing right” after previous felony convictions. She is not, of course, as she’ll be reminded next month, when she misses out on yet another election.

We met on the campus of the University of Louisville at an event to direct resources and support to people grappling with substance use disorders. That day alone, Fitts told me, she and her colleagues had met two people unaware their voting rights had been restored by Beshear’s order in 2019. Informing someone that, yes, they can legally vote is bittersweet, she said.

“Our government did nothing to inform people. They didn’t tell anyone. We are doing that. We have a phone list and we go out and find people,” Fitts said. “And we have so much more to do.”

People working to pick up the government’s slack say the Beshear administration could do much more than simple outreach to those it lifted from disenfranchisement.

Bryan Ford, a formerly incarcerated activist who is disenfranchised and runs a nonprofit to assist people in recovery from substance use disorders, said that, for one, probation and parole offices could mention voting more often. This, Ford argues, would have a public-safety benefit, and the data agree with him: research shows that people with past convictions who have their rights restored and engage in voting are less likely to be rearrested.

But as it is, Ford said, “Urinalysis and going to jail — that’s what probation talks to me about. That’s it.”

“You’ll send me a court-appointed lawyer for my plea bargain, but after I do whatever time, who’s going to tell me that one of the things I can do, besides go see my probation officer, is to go get my rights back?”

Advocates would be thrilled by even minor reforms. They say the online tool Beshear touted in that press conference, for example, often fails to accurately report whether someone is eligible to vote. Beshear has pledged to be vigilant about keeping the site in order, but many of those using it say it frequently returns false information —telling people who are indeed eligible to vote that they cannot, and vice-versa — and that sometimes it doesn’t function at all.

“We were in a jail yesterday and the link didn’t even work,” said Savvy Shabazz, a formerly incarcerated voting rights activist based in Louisville. “We just have to do the work on our own.”

Shabazz helps lead voter outreach and education efforts in Kentucky jails, where people held before trial often have the right to vote but are still routinely disenfranchised. Shabazz said some people in jails report difficulty getting voter registration forms, while others request mail ballots but never receive them. He said most jails in the state take no proactive steps to identify eligible voters in lockup and provide them ballot access around elections. Shabazz said that many sheriffs, who run local jails, haven’t allowed him and his colleagues inside to do voter outreach ahead of this year’s election.

“Voting is not a privilege; it’s a right,” he adds. “People’s rights are being violated when those jails are not allowing them to vote.”

The struggle to make jail voting easier, like the struggle to spread word of Beshear’s order, reminds Shabazz and other activists that they simply cannot trust the government to do the work of ensuring all eligible voters know of their rights and have ballot access.

Tip Moody, who is formerly incarcerated, says he learned he was allowed to vote again not from the governor’s office or any official government notice, but rather by happening upon a letter submitted by the League of Women Voters that was published in a newspaper. Moody, who now works for a small nonprofit that advocates for and seeks to amplify the voices of formerly incarcerated people, has often encountered people unaware that they are eligible to vote.

He’s also come across plenty of people disinclined to participate at all, even when aware they are able. “You would be amazed at how many are eligible but don’t want to register,” he said. That’s common in the U.S., where interaction with the criminal justice system is often predictive of turnout. A series ofstudies released in the past 15 years found participation ranging from 5% to 18% among people recently released from prison who have the right to vote. In February, Bolts reported on new research showing that simply being pulled over by a traffic cop was enough to make people in Florida less likely to vote.

Explained Marcus Jackson, who works with Moody and was imprisoned for 17 years, “The only time a lot of people, especially disenfranchised people, see politicians is during election cycles. We want people to understand why the vote is important, why they should show up at the polls, but we just haven’t had that type of investment in a lot of our communities.”

I met Moody and Jackson at a park in Nicholasville in September. They and about 15 other men, all with past felony convictions, had come to Lake Mingo Park to pick up trash and show face in their community — a way, they said, to remind passersby and themselves that they are worthy, valuable people, whether or not the government lets them vote.

“I still can’t vote, and it’s hurtful,” said Jackson, who lives in Frankfort. “Not everyone is going to be as persistent to consistently show up like this, but I’m highly motivated to be that example, so that they will allow people like me to vote.”

Many other people working in this space echoed Jackson and Moody in saying that feelings of democratic detachment or abandonment are most evident in poorer and often predominantly-Black sections of the state. Disenfranchisement, after all, falls hardest on Black Kentuckians, who are more than twice as likely to be blocked from voting, according to a recent report by the League of Women Voters of Kentucky. As of 2016, one in four Black people of voting age in Kentucky could not vote; at nearly one in eight today, the rate is still alarmingly high compared to the rest of the country.

The longstanding and broad exclusion levied so strongly against Black people in Kentucky leaves many feeling sidelined from a young age, activists said. Voting rights activists working to register people restored by Beshear sometimes visit local schools to pre-register teenagers on the cusp of voting age. They told me that the kids in poorer, more heavily-incarcerated areas tend to feel alienated from democracy in much the same way Jackson and Moody so often observe among adults with past felonies.

“Lexington Catholic — that’s where the rich kids are, and when I set my table up, they come up to register to vote like I’m giving something away,” Clark said. “At the public schools, I have to work the crowd. I have to be in their face to say, ‘Can I register you to vote?’ And they say, ‘maybe next time, or ‘I’ll think about it.’ I have to beg them: ‘Please let me register you to vote. Your vote is your voice.’”

Regina Harris, who works with Clark on voter outreach in schools, says she tries to talk about disenfranchisement and rights restoration when meeting students, but that those in wealthier areas typically avoid the topic. “What I do notice with the Catholic schools and the private schools,” Harris said, “is that the kids there want nothing to do with me when I talk to them about restoration of rights for felons. Their parents will literally move them aside.”

It might not seem like it, Jackson said when I met him at Lake Mingo Park, but the effort to get Black teenagers in underinvested, overpoliced areas to exercise their power as voters aligns closely with the work he’s doing to get his peers to see value in spending a morning hunting for litter in the suburbs. At 51, Jackson said, he’s learned that government officials aren’t likely to take up the project of empowering and mobilizing people excluded either formally or informally from democracy.

“My whole life, as a little Black boy, I always had to prove myself. No one accepted me on face value. It was always a stereotype or something that came along with me —t he Black kid coming into the store to steal. That happened very early on in life.”

“It’s always been that ‘you’re not good enough.’ And once you get that felony conviction,” Jackson said, miming the swing of a baseball bat, “it’s ‘off with your head.’”

An election official talks to a voter on primary election day, May 16, 2023, at the Scott County Public Library in Georgetown. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

Some of Kentucky’s voters will go to their local polling locations this week.?

Excused in-person early voting begins Wednesday, Oct. 25, and will be held Oct. 25-27, and next week Oct. 30-Nov. 1.?

Voters can find information, such as address and hours, for their local in-person early voting location on the State Board of Elections’ website.?

Reasons someone may be eligible for excused in-person early voting can also be found on the website. Some examples of eligible voters are people who may be an elections officer who will work this election cycle, a student who temporarily lives outside of the county of their residence and will not be in that county on the day of an election or future early voting dates, or a person who is part of the Armed Forces or a dependent of an Armed Forces member and will be out of the county on the day of an election or future early voting days.?

No excuse early in-person voting will begin in Kentucky on Thursday, Nov. 2, and will be held Nov. 2-4.?

The last day for Kentucky voters to request a mail-in absentee ballot is Tuesday, Oct. 24. To be counted, ballots must be received by 6 p.m. local time. To find a local drop box to return ballots, visit the State Board of Elections’ website.?

Kentucky’s general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7. All of Kentucky’s constitutional officers — governor, lieutenant governor, agriculture commissioner, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor and attorney general — will be on the ballot. Primary elections were held in May.?

Some voters will have a special election to decide, such as in House District 93 in Fayette County where there will be a special election to fill the late Rep. Lamin Swann’s seat.?

The deadline to register to vote in the general election was Tuesday, Oct. 4. Last week, the secretary of state’s office reported that voter registration surged 10 days before the deadline, with 6,462 voters registering between Oct. 1-10.?

For more voting information, visit govote.ky.gov.?

U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., arrives for a House Republican members meeting as the conference continues to debate the race for speaker of the House at the U.S. Capitol Oct. 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Nebraska GOP Rep. Don Bacon said his wife slept with a gun for protection after she received threatening phone calls demanding that her husband support Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan’s bid for U.S. House speaker.

Bacon was among a handful of members who reported threats and the targeting of family members after opposing the conservative hardliner’s bid for the speaker’s gavel.

“I didn’t sleep well last night. I called her and I go, ‘How you doing?’ and she said, ‘I slept really good, I had a loaded gun,’” he said Thursday after leaving a Republican conference meeting.

“It was ugly phone calls,” said Bacon, a member of the House Armed Services Committee who?served in the U.S. Air Force for nearly 30 years,?retiring as a Brigadier General.

Jordan, chair of the House Judiciary Committee,?failed twice to garner enough floor votes?to reach the gavel. Twenty opposed him Tuesday. By Wednesday that gap grew to 22.

Jordan and his allies employed an aggressive campaign over recent days that included Fox News personality Sean Hannity and conservative talk radio host Glenn Beck stumping for him on air and ridiculing critics.

Threats disclosed by members

As Republicans met Thursday behind closed doors in an attempt to recalibrate after 16 days without a speaker, several aired grievances about the Jordan camp’s tactics.

Virginia Rep. Jen Kiggans, who voted against Jordan on the second ballot after supporting him during the first floor vote, told reporters following the closed-door meeting that many lawmakers brought up the threats and intimidation.

“We all share the same conservative values and principles,” Kiggans said. “So to get those threats and to be intimidated by members of our own party was really frustrating, especially for people like me.”

Iowa Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks,?who voted for Jordan?on the first ballot but opposed him on the second ballot, said Wednesday in a?written statement?that she’d received “credible death threats and a barrage of threatening calls.”

“One thing I cannot stomach, or support is a bully,” Miller-Meeks said.

“Someone who threatens another with bodily harm or tries to suppress differing opinions undermines opportunity for unity and regard for freedom of speech,” Miller-Meeks said. “I did not stand for bullies before I voted for Chairwoman Granger and when I voted for Speaker designee Jordan, and I will not bend to bullies now.” Rep. Kay Granger is the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Georgia Rep. Drew Ferguson, who?supported Jordan on the first floor vote but not the second,?said in a written statement that he had “genuine concerns about the threatening tactics and pressure campaigns Jordan and his allies were using to leverage members for their votes.”

“I discussed this directly with Jim, and planned to support him on the second ballot,” Ferguson wrote. “When the pressure campaigns and attacks on fellow members ramped up, it became clear to me that the House Republican Conference does not need a bully as the Speaker.”

After voting against Jordan on the floor on Wednesday, Ferguson wrote that he and his family “started receiving death threats.”

“That is simply unacceptable, unforgivable and will never be tolerated,” Ferguson added.

Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, who opposed Jordan on both floor votes, wrote on X on Wednesday that “intimidation and threatening tactics do not — and will not — work.”

“Steve Scalise earned my vote for Speaker in the last two rounds,” Simpson wrote. “He has repeatedly proven his leadership as our conference’s Majority Leader, and I am honored to support him.”

Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart of Florida said the “nanosecond” that outside pressure tactics begin “it’s over” for him.

“If you look at the folks that are getting these threats: Don Bacon, retired general of the United States Armed Forces, you know, I don’t know how anybody can think that folks like that can be pressured,” Díaz-Balart said.

Jordan stays in the race

Uncertainty loomed over the Republican conference Thursday.

GOP House members met privately for several hours to try to find a path forward from an essentially frozen lower chamber.

A short-lived proposal to temporarily expand the powers of Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry of North Carolina fizzled out by day’s end.

Jordan remained in the race, but when a next vote would occur remained unclear late Thursday.

Some members, including Jordan supporter Rep. Kat Cammack of Florida, said they think the next step for the conference is to “hash this out.”

“There has been encouragement from all sides of conference, every walk of life, every faction that is represented in there, that at the end of the day, if we can’t agree on anything, we can agree on one thing and that’s the 22 (who oppose Jordan) have to get in a room and talk to Jim,” she said.

Election workers process ballots at the Arapahoe County Elections Facility in Littleton, Colorado, on Nov. 3, 2020. (Carl Payne for Colorado Newsline)

Lately, a rough consensus has emerged among people who study the impact of voting policies: Though they often spark fierce partisan fighting, most changes to voting laws do little to affect overall turnout, much less election results.

But one fast-growing reform appears to stand out as an exception.

When every registered voter gets sent a ballot in the mail — a system known as universal vote-by-mail — voting rates tend to rise, numerous studies have found.

Advocates for mail voting say these findings haven’t gotten the attention they deserve, and that they should lead more states that want to boost turnout to adopt UVM, as it’s called.

“[T]o a remarkable degree, most of the nation’s leading journalists, democracy reform organizations, and elected officials continue to largely ignore, downplay — or even dismiss outright – the potentially profound implications of these noticeably high turnout rates,” said a research paper released last month by the National Vote at Home Institute, which advocates for increased use of mail voting.

Currently, eight states — California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington — use UVM.

Vote by mail attacked by Trump

Efforts in recent years by many states to make it easier to vote by mail prompted a furious backlash from former President Donald Trump and his backers, who have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that mail voting is dangerously vulnerable to fraud.

Perhaps no state incurred Trump’s wrath more than Nevada, which, along with California, introduced UVM in 2020 in response to the pandemic.

“The governor of Nevada should not be in charge of ballots. The ballots are going to be a disaster for our country,” Trump said ahead of the 2020 election, referring to the state’s then-governor, Democrat Steve Sisolak (In fact, Sisolak was not “in charge of ballots.” Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, was). “You’re going to have problems with the ballots like nobody has ever seen before.”

Since replacing Sisolak this year, Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, has pushed for eliminating UVM. (“Sending ballots to more than 1.9 million registered voters is inefficient and unnecessary,” Lombardo said in January.) But Democrats, who control the state legislature, have shown no interest in scrapping the system.

So great was the GOP’s suspicion of the practice in 2022 that some voters were told by party activists to hold onto mail ballots and hand them in on Election Day at their polling place, rather than mailing them.

But Trump and Republicans have lately backtracked, telling supporters to take advantage of mail voting rather than handing an advantage to Democrats. In June, the Republican National Committee announced a new get-out-the-vote drive encouraging early and mail voting.

States tinker with mail voting

Still, over 20 states have sought to restrict mail voting since 2020. Ohio has shortened the timeframe to apply for mail ballots and imposed new signature requirements, while Arizona now removes people from its list to receive a mail ballot if they go for more than two years without voting.

Among states looking to expand mail voting, not all have gone as far as UVM. Both New York and Pennsylvania, among other states, have loosened their rules to allow anyone to cast an absentee ballot by mail, rather than requiring an excuse — a system known as no-excuse absentee. But the voter still must take the trouble to apply to receive their absentee ballot, rather than being mailed one automatically.

Experts say there isn’t strong evidence that these more modest approaches to mail voting do much to boost turnout

Other reforms that likewise have become core to the Democratic platform on voting policy, like adding early voting opportunities, also haven’t consistently been shown to increase voting rates. Allowing people to register at the polls — often called same-day registration — has in some studies been associated with small turnout increases.

By contrast, the research on UVM finds a consistent and significant impact.

Advocates say that’s hardly surprising. Under UVM, election officials simply mail ballots to directly everyone on the voter rolls, almost literally putting a ballot in voters’ hands. Voters can return their ballot either through the mail or by leaving it in a secure ballot dropbox.

Research studies

A 2022 paper by Eric McGhee and Jennifer Paluch of the Public Policy Institute of California and Mindy Romero of the University of Southern California found that UVM increased turnout among registered voters by 5.6 percentage points in the 2020 election — what the authors called “a substantial and robust positive effect.”

A 2018 paper by the data firm Pantheon Analytics, which works for Democrats and progressive groups, compared Utah counties that used UVM with those that didn’t, and found that the system boosted turnout by 5-7 percentage points among registered voters.

And a forthcoming paper by Michael Ritter of Washington State University, to be published in the November 2023 edition of the Election Law Journal, looks at various mail voting systems over the last decade and finds that UVM led to an 8-point increase in registered voter turnout.

By and large, states that use UVM appear to see higher voting rates than those that don’t. The National Vote at Home Institute research paper found that eight of the 11 states that used UVM in 2020 were in the top 15 states for turnout of active registered voters. And none of those eight were battleground states, which tend to see higher turnout.

Two other states using UVM for the first time in 2020 ranked first and second on improved turnout compared to 2016 — Hawaii, which saw a 14% jump, and Utah, which saw an 11% jump.

The paper also found that UVM has a particularly large impact on turnout rates for young voters, Black and Latino voters, who tend to vote at lower rates than average.

No advantage for one party?

Advocates say there’s another reason why policymakers should have no reluctance to embrace UVM: Despite its impact on turnout, it doesn’t help one party more than the other, according to numerous studies.

“Universal VBM does not appear to tilt turnout toward the Democratic party, nor does it appear to affect election outcomes meaningfully,” a representative 2020 paper by a group of Stanford University political scientists concluded.

McGhee said that finding could have the effect of turning down the political heat on the issue.

“Hopefully as the evidence gets out that it boosts turnout without impacting partisan outcomes, that part of it will fade a little bit,” he said. “And it’ll just be seen as a good-government reform.”

(Abbey Cutrer)

Pretend it’s the end of the 2024 presidential election. Either Republican Michael Adams or Democrat Charles “Buddy” Wheatley is Kentucky’s secretary of state, a job that includes overseeing elections in the Bluegrass State.

The losing candidate in the state’s presidential election calls Kentucky’s secretary of state and asks him to “find” enough votes to overturn the Kentucky results — and threatens him if he fails to do so.

That’s what former President Donald Trump, a Republican, did on Jan. 2, 2021, in a phone call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in his unsuccessful bid to win another four years in the White House.

The call led to Trump’s indictment in Georgia for? interfering in the 2020 election.

“I would terminate the call,” said Adams, a Louisville attorney who is seeking another four-year term as Kentucky’s secretary of state on the Republican ticket.

“I would inform the attorney general. I would inform the FBI, basically any members of my bipartisan task force, state police and federal partners. I would make them aware and certainly notify my legal counsel. No good would come out of a call like that.”

Would he terminate the call even if the presidential candidate was his own party’s nominee?? Yes, said Adams.

It was inappropriate for Trump to have made that call to Georgia’s secretary of state, he said.

Democrat Wheatley, a lawyer and former state representative and fire chief of Covington, said he would tell the candidate — regardless of party— that Kentucky has reported its results and they are official by our state laws “and nothing will change because of that.”

Asked if Trump’s call was wrong, Wheatley said, “I think the Georgia secretary of state did the right thing.” Raffensperger opened up an investigation of the call and informed authorities about it.

Across the nation, the public office of secretary of state has taken on more consequence and visibility with recent election disputes.

Adams and Wheatley each say they are the best person to handle that job in Kentucky in their hopes of winning the Nov. 7 general election.

The secretary of state is Kentucky’s chief election officer, chief business official as keeper of start-up papers and other corporate records, and chief advocate for civic engagement. The job pays $148,108.56 a year.? It is a constitutional office and is often referred to as being on the “down ticket,” meaning it is below the power of the governor’s office.

For the race so far, Wheatley has raised more campaign funds —$165,692 — but Adams leads with receipts — $225,345. That is because Adams took out a $156,000 loan for his campaign, according to the latest records from the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance.

Here’s a look at some of the major issues in the race and the candidates’ views on them.

Making it easier to vote

On his campaign website, Wheatley says, “Kentucky is still one of the most restrictive voting access states in the Union. In 2022, we actually made it harder to vote. I will bring back more polling locations and precincts to make it easier to vote.”

Asked why he’s saying that, Wheatley said, “For several reasons, including we have only three early voting days, our polls close at the earliest time in the country at 6 p.m., felons can’t vote except for executive order, and we don’t allow independents to vote in the primaries.”

Wheatley is calling for “more poll locations, more poll workers and more access to the polls so our elections truly reflect the voters of Kentucky.”

He said in recent years that Adams has presided over a drastic reduction of polling places replaced by super center voting locations. “It’s really discouraging.”

Adams strongly disagrees with Wheatley’s assessment of voting in Kentucky.

“Kentucky makes it easier to vote than a lot of blue states on the East Coast. If it is restrictive in any way, it’s because Mr. Wheatley’s political party ran this Capitol and office for 100 years. It wasn’t until I won that we increased voter access. They did nothing.

“All his party ever brought to this office is corruption,” said Adams, referring to his predecessor, Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, who was fined $10,000 by the Executive Branch Ethics Commission for what the panel determined was improper use of voter data that benefited her and others. Grimes, secretary of state from 2012 to 2020, has denied any wrongdoing and said she would appeal the commission’s fine.

Adams said Kentucky is the only red and southern state to make it easier to vote in the last three years.

He said that came about because Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and he worked together during the COVID-19 pandemic to make voting easier. Their changes included early voting and more use of absentee ballots. The legislature later made those changes permanent though not as generous as they had been for the 2020 election during the first year of the pandemic.?

“That’s why I have broad support from both parties,” he said, noting that he took flak from some in his own party. One dubbed him “Benedict Adams.”

“My campaign welcomes support from all Kentuckians. I do not take the race for granted, nor should anyone who wants fair, free, accessible and secure elections.”

Adams ?said he would like to see more voting but several obstacles have to be overcome.

Adams noted that it’s becoming more difficult to find workers at the precinct polls and locations to conduct voting.

Adams said some churches have stopped being voting locations, especially since there was a constitutional amendment dealing with abortion on the ballot last year in conflict with their teachings.?

Some schools chose to no longer be voting locations after COVID-19, he said.

Adams also said he would like to see more early voting but that would require more personnel, especially in county clerks’ offices.

And the need has not been shown to have more voting days in primary or non-presidential general elections, he added.

About 45 percent of the vote cast in the 2020 presidential election came in early voting, said Adams, but last year only 15 percent of the voters voted early in the primary.

“There is no design on my part to suppress voters, just the opposite,” said Adams. “I am the father of early voting. My opponent likes to say I’m a voter suppressor.? That is ridiculous.? He lacks credibility. I have risked my neck to get people to vote.”

Adams’ freelance work

The Lexington Herald-Leader reported in January that Adams sometimes does outside legal work for Republican clients.

Wheatley said Adams’ freelance work is “a conflict of interest, sometimes with some seedy people.”

But Adams said the extra work only amounts to a few hours each week and does not interfere with his job as secretary of state.

“It takes zero hours from my state job,” said Adams.? “By the way, Wheatley also practiced law when he was a state representative.”

Allowing more felons to vote

One of Gov. Andy Beshear’s first acts as governor in December 2019 was to restore the right to vote for at least 140,000 former felons who had fully completed their felony sentences for nonviolent or nonsexual crimes. The number of people who have had their voting rights restored due to the order has now grown to 190,726, according to his administration.

Both Wheatley and Adams said they would encourage whoever is the next governor to continue that policy, maybe even pushing a constitutional amendment for it.

Both candidates also say they support giving independents the right to choose to vote in primary elections.

Wheatley’s job suspension as fire chief

At this year’s Fancy Farm picnic, Adams brought up Wheatley’s 2008 two-week suspension as Covington fire chief for violating city policy by consuming alcoholic beverages prior to operating a city-issued vehicle and wrecking it.

The Covington city manager said Wheatley in February 2008 was suspended without pay for two weeks after he crashed a city-issued 2000 Ford Crown Victoria in Hebron, totaling it head-on.

Wheatley had to make restitution to the city for the vehicle and lost a merit-based pay raise.

Wheatley said during a recent interview that he was never charged with any wrongdoing, but “simply made a mistake.” He said he has never been charged with any violation of the law in his life.

Wheatley also said if a similar incident had happened to Adams 15 years ago he would have not brought it up in this year’s race.

Adams said he did not believe that. He said the issue reflects on d Wheatley’s judgment while on the job.?

The sign outside the Frankfort headquarters of the Republican Party of Kentucky. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Tom Loftus)

FRANKFORT — Add aerospace giant Boeing to the list of companies with vital lobbying interests in Washington to make a big contribution to renovate and expand the Republican Party of Kentucky’s headquarters — a building that stands a few blocks from the Kentucky Capitol and is named in honor of U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, one of the most powerful people in Washington.

A report filed Tuesday by the Republican Party of Kentucky with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance discloses that The Boeing Company PAC, of Arlington, Virginia, gave $100,000 on Sept. 5 to the Kentucky GOP’s building fund.

That brings to $2.75 million the total of donations in the past 12 months from big companies or their PACs — all based outside Kentucky — to renovate and expand the Mitch McConnell Building. Here’s the complete list of donors to the fund since late 2022:?

• Pfizer Inc., New York, New York ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$1,000,000
• NWO Resources, Greenwood Village, Colorado ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500,000
• Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., New York, New York ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?? $300,000
• Verizon, Washington, D.C. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $300,000
• AT&T, St. Louis, Missouri ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$200,000
• The Boeing Company PAC, Arlington, Virginia ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $100,000
• Altria Client Services LLC (Philip Morris), Richmond, Virginia? ? ?$100,000
• Microsoft Corporation, Reno, Nevada ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$100,000
• Comcast Corporation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?$100,000
• Delta Air Lines Inc., Atlanta, Georgia ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $50,000

The amount of money a person or PAC can give to most political committees is limited. (For instance, a person can give no more than $2,100 per election to a candidate for Kentucky governor, and corporation contributions are prohibited.) But a bill passed by the Kentucky General Assembly in 2017 allowed each political party to establish a building fund which can accept contributions of unlimited amounts and accept corporation donations.??

Late Tuesday, Sean Southard, spokesman for the Kentucky GOP, replied to questions from the Lantern with an email that said in part: “We are taking on this renovation and expansion as we need additional space. We have a lot more staff than we used to and many more Republicans we need to support. As we raise funds into the building fund account, we are following both federal and state law. The funds raised into this account can only be used for certain expenditures related to the building and are not eligible to be spent on candidate or issue advocacy.”

The report filed by the Republican building fund on Tuesday also shows that since July 1 the fund has paid $15,000 in fundraising consulting fees to Haney Consulting. That brings to $60,000 the amount paid by the building fund this year to Haney Consulting, a firm owned and operated by McConnell’s longtime chief fundraising consultant Laura Haney.

As of Sept. 30 the Republican building fund reported having $2,715,122 in cash on hand for its pending renovation and expansion project.

The Kentucky Democratic Party building fund reported less than $1,000 in receipts and expenses during the past three months. It reported having $339,254 on hand as of Sept. 30.

This was the scene on a rainy primary Election Day in 2023 at Elkhorn Crossing School in Georgetown. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

In a matter of weeks, Kentucky voters will decide who will lead the state’s executive branch.?

The general election is set for Tuesday, Nov. 7. Most Kentucky voters will decide statewide office holders, though Fayette County voters in House 93 District can vote in a special election to fill the late Rep. Lamin Swann’s seat.?

Constitutional officers on the ballot include governor, lieutenant governor, agriculture commissioner, secretary of state, state treasurer, state auditor and attorney general. Primary elections were held in May.?

To find local polling locations that will be open on Nov. 7, visit govote.ky.gov.?

Register to vote

The deadline to register to vote in Kentucky for the general election is Tuesday, Oct. 10 at 4 p.m. local time. Voters may register online through the Kentucky secretary of state’s website.?

Absentee ballots

Kentucky voters may request absentee ballots online through the Kentucky secretary of state’s website. The online portal opened Sept. 23. It closes on Oct. 24. Eligibility requirements for a mail-in absentee ballot can be found on the State Board of Elections website.

Mail-in absentee ballots must be received by the county clerk by 6 p.m. local time on Election Day to be counted. Voters can find their local drop-box locations at govote.ky.gov.?

Early voting?

Early in-person voting begins in late October.?

Excused in-person absentee voting will be held Oct. 25-27 and Oct. 30-Nov. 1. Polling locations for these dates can be found on the State Board of Elections website. The board’s website also lists eligibility requirements for excused in-person voting.?

No excuse early voting is Nov. 2-4. Polling locations for these dates are listed on the State Board of Elections’ website.

In September, the GOP-controlled Wisconsin?Senate voted to oust Meagan Wolfe as the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.?Wolfe was the target of false conspiracy theories about illegal voting during the 2020 election, but she has refused to step down.?(Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers are threatening to impeach both the state’s election administrator, who is highly regarded nationally, and a state Supreme Court justice despite a ruling by the state’s judicial commission that the justice had done nothing wrong — effectively nullifying a recent statewide election she won, Democrats say.

In North Carolina, a bill that would give the legislature control of state and local election boards — potentially allowing lawmakers to overturn results — could soon become law.

And Alabama continues to defy the U.S. Supreme Court by refusing to draw a new congressional district with a Black majority.

Other states are seeing efforts by politicians to gain a political advantage by curtailing the power of voters.

It’s all part of a burst of anti-democratic activity at the state level, as Republican lawmakers and officials in recent weeks have run roughshod over long-standing norms of good government — and sometimes the clear will of voters — in order to maximize their party’s political clout.

Much of this procedural extremism has aimed to protect GOP gerrymanders — when lawmakers use their power to draw district lines to advantage their side — reflecting the sky-high stakes attached to the redistricting process.

But to those working to protect democracy, it’s a reminder that, for all the deserved attention to national threats — the attempted coup of Jan. 6, 2021, the looming danger of election subversion next year — some of the most explicit efforts to undermine the popular will have for years been happening in the states.

Indeed, experts say any scheme to thwart a free and fair national election in 2024 would likely center on corrupting one or more state-level election systems — just as was attempted in 2020.

“We should call this what it is: an effort to lay the groundwork to subvert the will of the voters in future elections,” said Joanna Lydgate, the CEO of the pro-democracy group States United Action. “While the focus is often on the national picture, our elections are run by the states. That means we need to keep shining a light on state-level efforts that undermine our democracy. It’s the only way to shut it down.”

‘An attempt to nullify an election’

Wisconsin has generated the biggest headlines lately. In September, the GOP-controlled Senate voted to oust Meagan Wolfe as the head of the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Wolfe, a respected and nonpartisan elections official who had been appointed to her post by the commission in 2018, was the target of false conspiracy theories about illegal voting during the 2020 election. A recent hearing on whether to remove her became a platform for election deniers making debunked fraud claims.

Wolfe has refused to step down.

“The Senate’s vote today to remove me is not a referendum on the job I do but rather a reaction to not achieving the political outcome they desire,” Wolfe said after the vote. “The political outcome they desired is to have someone in this position of their own choosing that would bend to those political pressures.”

Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, has filed a lawsuit to stop the removal, claiming the Senate lacks the authority for it.

A group of Republican lawmakers is now circulating a resolution to impeach Wolfe.

Wisconsin’s Republican lawmakers are also considering impeaching Supreme Court Justice Janet Protasiewicz, who was elected in April by a resounding 11-point margin.

Though the state’s judicial elections are officially nonpartisan, candidates typically are open about their political leanings in order to win the support of a major party. Protasiewicz, a liberal, was backed by Democrats, while her conservative opponent was supported by the GOP.

Lawmakers have cited Protasiewicz’s campaign-trail comments that the state’s legislative maps? — which are being challenged in a case set to come before the state Supreme Court — are “rigged.” But other justices have similarly voiced opinions on hot-button issues without facing repercussions.

The state’s Judicial Commission has said the complaints against Protasiewicz have no merit.

Wisconsin’s legislative maps are among the most heavily gerrymandered in the country — a 2020 Harvard study ranked them as the worst, on par with Jordan, Bahrain, and the Congo. They’ve consistently given the GOP large majorities — currently 22-11 in the Senate and 64-35 in the House — despite the state tilting slightly Democratic in most recent statewide races.

The court appears poised to strike down the maps and order fairer districts to be drawn, threatening Republicans’ hold on power. But impeaching Protasiewicz would leave the court evenly divided between liberals and conservatives, meaning the gerrymandered maps — and the GOP’s large majorities — would be much more likely to survive.

Ben Wikler, the chair of the state Democratic Party, has called the impeachment threat “a totally unconstitutional attempt to nullify the last election and effectively abolish judicial independence in Wisconsin.”

Wisconsin’s legislative leaders have often pushed the envelope to gain a political advantage. When Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, was first elected in 2018, lawmakers immediately passed a measure to weaken his power.

But going after Protasiewicz just months after her comfortable election win may not be popular with voters — potentially making it a bridge too far for some lawmakers.

“I think people are likely upset — she was elected by a wide margin in a free and fair election,” said Edgar Lin, the Wisconsin policy advocate and counsel for Protect Democracy, which works to preserve fair elections. “And that spans across the political spectrum. Many people in red districts voted for her.”

That reality has legislative leaders exploring other solutions. Last week, House Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, unveiled new legislation that he said would establish a fair and nonpartisan redistricting process. But Evers rejected the plan, saying it would still ultimately leave lawmakers in charge.

Not that impeachment is off the table. Vos last week appointed a panel of former Supreme Court justices to study the issue and report back — a move widely seen as a delaying tactic. He didn’t reveal the panel’s members, but one former justice reported to be on it is a conservative who donated to Protasiewicz’s opponent in the election.

‘The power to decide contested elections’

But when it comes to protecting gerrymandered maps, perhaps no state has gone further than Alabama.

Back in June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that found Alabama’s congressional map discriminated against Black voters, and that ordered the state to draw an additional Black-majority district, or something close to it. Only one of the map’s seven districts was majority-Black, even though Black people are about 27% of the state’s population.

Instead, in a striking act of defiance, Alabama drew a new map that still had only one Black-majority district. On Sept. 5, a federal court struck down the new map, saying it was “deeply troubled that the state enacted a map that the state readily admits does not provide the remedy we said federal law requires.”

Now, Alabama has appealed that ruling back to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping for a delay that will allow it to use the discriminatory map next year.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, whose office has led the case, was one of a group of state attorneys general who urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block the certification of electors in the 2020 presidential election. He has refused to say that President Joe Biden was “duly elected.”

Meanwhile, North Carolina lawmakers are advancing a bill — it passed the House Tuesday — that would authorize the GOP-controlled legislature to appoint state and local election board members. Currently, that’s the role of the governor, Democrat Roy Cooper.

Cooper has said he’ll veto the measure. But because Republicans enjoy super majorities in both chambers, thanks to gerrymandered maps, they can override his veto.

Currently, the governor appoints all five members of the state board, though no more than three can be from one party. County boards are also split 3-2 in favor of the governor’s party.

The legislation would create even-numbered boards, with lawmakers from each party picking half the members. Republicans argue that structure will encourage bipartisanship.

But critics say it would likely mean frequent deadlocks. One result, voting rights advocates fear, could be to prevent counties from expanding the number of early voting sites — something Republicans have strongly opposed.

Even more worryingly, the boards might refuse to certify election results, which could send the issue to the courts or the legislature, raising the threat of subversion. North Carolina provided former President Donald Trump with his narrowest margin of victory in 2020, and could be pivotal again next year.

In a recent op-ed, Cooper called the bill a “backdoor attempt to limit early voting and consolidate the legislature’s quest for the power to decide contested elections.”

This is just the latest Republican effort to reduce Cooper’s power over elections since he was elected in 2016.

It comes not long after the legislature passed a bill that would make voting more difficult, especially targeting mail-in voting. Cooper vetoed the measure but Republicans are expected to override the veto.

Cleta Mitchell, the Trump lawyer who played a key role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, met with lawmakers drafting the bill.

For good measure, the legislature also released a draft of the state budget Sept. 20 that includes a provision exempting lawmakers from the state’s public records law. One ethics watchdog called the measure, which is expected to become law, “a devastating blow to North Carolinians’ right to know what their elected officials are doing.”

And last month, the state’s Judicial Standards Commission launched an investigation into Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls, the court’s only Black woman.

Earls, a Democrat, was asked in an interview why the lawyers arguing before the court are disproportionately white men. She responded by talking about implicit bias and saying that white men “get more respect” and are “treated better” at the court.

Earls has sued the commission, claiming the investigation violates her free speech rights.

‘This would open the door to monsters’

The events in Wisconsin, Alabama, and North Carolina have generated national headlines. But gambits by lawmakers in other states have flown further under the radar.

In Ohio, the Supreme Court has ruled five times that the state’s current legislative maps are unconstitutional gerrymanders favoring Republicans. But the bipartisan commission that’s supposed to draw fair maps hasn’t met since May 2022.

It has made almost no progress, because GOP legislative leaders can’t agree on who to appoint to it. The panel was scheduled to finally meet again Sept. 20, just two days before a Sept. 22 deadline imposed by the secretary of state.

Lawmakers’ goal appears to be to run out the clock and ram through skewed maps with little public scrutiny. Because the Supreme Court now has a conservative majority, it’s expected to green-light whatever lawmakers come up with.

Last month, a bid by the GOP-controlled legislature to make it harder for Ohioans to amend the state constitution was overwhelmingly defeated by voters.

In Florida, a subtler scheme is underway. Acting on a request from the speaker of the House, the state Supreme Court last month created a commission to study changing the way prosecutors and judges are elected.

Advocates of criminal justice reform say the goal is a judicial gerrymander that would undercut the power of Black voters and make it much harder to elect reform prosecutors of the kind that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has targeted.

“Judicial redistricting in Florida would almost certainly be a near-fatal blow against the reform prosecutor movement in the state,” one prominent reform advocate has written.

The kind of power grabs that are currently playing out in the states aren’t entirely new. Many of the extreme gerrymanders that lawmakers are now fighting to preserve were first enacted over a decade ago.

But today, advocates say, these efforts are even more dangerous for democracy. That’s because, by giving lawmakers more power over elections or over their state’s judicial system, many of these schemes strengthen and reinforce the ultimate threat of outright election subversion.

“If they can impeach someone successfully to stop them from ruling in a way they don’t like, what will they do after the 2024 election?” asked Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic chair, referring to the threat to impeach Protasiewicz. “It was one vote in our state Supreme Court that prevented the 2020 election from being overturned in Wisconsin. And they know who the justices were, so they could just suspend them. This would open the door to monsters that I don’t think they’d be able to control.”

Kentucky Supreme Court (front, from left) incoming Chief JuDebra Hembree Lambert, outgoing Chief Justice Laurance VanMeter, Michelle Keller. (Back row, from left) Christopher Shea Nickell, Kelly Thompson, Robert Conley, Angela McCormick Bisig. (AOC photo/Brian Bohannon)

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday about whether Republican-drawn U.S. and Kentucky House districts are gerrymandered and if that matters under the state constitution.?

Kentucky Democrats filed the lawsuit after the Republican supermajority in the General Assembly adopted the maps last year. Attorneys for the Democrats and the Commonwealth of Kentucky argued before Kentucky’s seven justices, who will later make a ruling on the lawsuit.?

The Supreme Court decided to hear the case earlier this year, bypassing the Court of Appeals. Previously, Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate ruled that the maps were a result of? “partisan gerrymanders” but he declined to find them unconstitutional.

Congressional and legislative districts are redrawn by the state legislature after a new U.S. Census is released every ten years. Tuesday’s oral arguments came more than a year after the General Assembly enacted the maps. The court’s future ruling could impact elections in 2024 or 2026.?

Michael Abate, a Louisville attorney representing Democrats, told reporters the court will have to decide if the state constitution prohibits a majority party from gerrymandering or creating districts to heavily favor the party in power. He said elections with preordained outcomes because of gerrymandering are “not ‘free or equal,’” as the state constitution requires. He said evidence shows that only seven of 100 House districts had a 25% chance of going for either party.

“The results were preordained virtually everywhere, and we proved that’s not because of Kentucky’s unique political geography,” Abate said. “It was an intentional choice by the mapmakers to draw lines to favor Republicans at every turn.”?

Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams, a defendant in the lawsuit, told reporters after the court recessed that the case hinges on what is in the state constitution regarding gerrymandering, not just the new maps.?

“Our position is that the constitution doesn’t speak to this issue at all. If it did, why’d the Democrats gerrymander their maps for 100 years?” Adams said. “So my view is this is a matter in the constitution left up to the legislature, and they can use their own standards as long as they comply with the Voting Rights Act.”?

Inside the courtroom, Abate first defended the Democrats’ position. Justice Angela McCormick Bisig pressed Abate about the 2022 elections, which saw Republicans take 80 seats in the 100-member state House. She said the predicted outcome of maps proposed by Democrats would have seen 77 Republicans elected — a fact she said “that is hard to overlook.” In response, Abate said if even a small number of seats flip, “the governance is weaker as a whole.”?

Victor Maddox, an assistant deputy attorney general representing the commonwealth, told justices that Kentucky Democrats became a superminority “not even with a map drawn by political adversaries.” That, Maddox argued, was a strong reason for the court to stay out of the political process of redistricting.?

‘Comer hook’

Justice Christopher Shea Nickell, who represents Western Kentucky on the Supreme Court, questioned Maddox about the need for the new 1st Congressional District, which stretches from the Mississippi River before arching northward to Frankfort. Dubbed the “Comer hook,” the district’s reach into Central Kentucky is thought to benefit U.S. Rep. James Comer whose residence is in Frankfort.?

“It would seem entirely reasonable to expect anyone aspiring to represent our region to have pride … in its people, heritage and culture to want to actually reside within its traditional borders,” Nickell said.?

Maddox responded that the change to the district under the Republican plan was “slight.” He added that the other congressional districts except for the 3rd District “became more compact” as a result of the redistricting.

The maps debated Tuesday will not have an impact on November’s general election, which is for statewide races. The court’s decision could impact 2024 and 2026 elections.

“But we do hope the court will rule by early next year in the legislative session so we have some clarity,” Adams said.?

Both Adams and Abate said that if the court rules the maps cannot be used, the General Assembly will be tasked with making new ones.?

The Declaration of Independence. (Getty Images)

There’s a growing feeling, among both experts and ordinary Americans, that our democracy isn’t functioning well — and even that it’s under threat.

“American democracy is cracking,” the Washington Post reported August 18.

“I’m terrified,” one democracy expert told the paper. “I think we are in bad shape, and I don’t know a way out.”

Forty-nine percent of respondents to a recent Associated Press poll said U.S. democracy isn’t working well, and 56% said the Republican party is doing a bad job of upholding democracy. For the Democratic party, the figure was 47%.

And just 16% of respondents to a 2022 CNN poll said they were very confident that U.S. election results reflected the will of the people.

But viewers of Wednesday night’s GOP primary presidential debate on Fox News wouldn’t have guessed any of this.

Though the network’s on-screen banner and backdrop read “Fox News Democracy 24,” the eight candidates onstage weren’t asked about elections, voting, or democracy throughout the two-hour production. Former President Donald Trump, the front runner, refused to participate and opted for a separate online interview with fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The debate moderators, Fox’s Brett Baier and Martha MacCallum, did find time to get the candidates’ views not only on the economy, education, immigration, and the war in Ukraine, but also about transgender girls playing high school sports and even the evidence for UFOs.

The debate did touch on a few issues that have implications for democracy.

Both entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., railed against what they called the “weaponization” of the Department of Justice for prosecuting Trump over his attempt to stay in power after losing the election, and his effort to hold onto classified government documents after he left office.

And several candidates, including Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, and (grudgingly) Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said when asked by the moderators that former Vice President Mike Pence, another candidate on stage, did the right thing when he resisted Trump’s pressure not to certify the 2020 results.

“Mike Pence stood for the Constitution,” said Christie. “And he deserves not grudging credit, he deserves our thanks as Americans for putting his oath of office and the Constitution of the United States before personal, political, and unfair pressure.”

But there was no discussion at all of elections or voting policy. That omission was all the more noticeable because, on the state level, the last two-and-a-half years have seen a rush to pass laws that make major changes to the election process — often, on the GOP side, the result of intense pressure from party activists and voters, who believed Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election and demanded that lawmakers tighten the rules.

Many of these new measures, which have overhauled everything from how votes are cast to how they’re counted to how elections offices are funded, were drafted with help from the growing network of Washington-based think tanks and advocacy groups focused on election issues, several featuring high-profile GOP former elected officials.

And last month, U.S. House Republicans used a public hearing in Atlanta to release a sweeping 224-page elections bill which Democrats called the most restrictive in decades. That legislation was passed 8-4 by the U.S. House Administration Committee in July but has not yet received a vote in the full House.

One possible reason that elections policy was absent entirely from Wednesday night’s debate: In April, Fox News paid over $787 million to settle a defamation lawsuit filed by the voting machine company Dominion, in connection with the broadcaster’s promotion of lies about the 2020 election. Since then the network has mostly steered clear of the issue.

While the moderators asked the questions, any of the candidates could have chosen to bring up elections issues on their own, but didn’t.

And that choice may reflect a new reality about the politics of the issue: Though Republican voters strongly support stricter voting rules, after Jan. 6 the anti-voter-fraud crusade that Trump sought to lead has perhaps become too controversial for presidential candidates to put at the center of their pitch to voters.

Of course, it’s a long campaign, and the candidates will have a second chance to talk to voters about democracy when they debate again on Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani walking through the Georgia Capitol in December 2020. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis says she’s aiming to start a trial against Donald Trump and his allies within six months of a grand jury’s Monday indictment on charges of a multi-state criminal conspiracy to overturn the former president’s narrow defeat to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump, several members of legal and political advisors, and state and local political allies are accused of spreading unfounded allegations of massive voting fraud, which led to incidents such as the breach of the state’s voting system in Coffee County in January 2021, and a slate of Georgia Republicans filing false electoral votes declaring Trump the winner.

The 19 defendants face multiple felony counts including racketeering and conspiracy, making false statements, filing false documents, impersonating a public officer, computer theft and trespass and conspiracy to defraud the state and other offenses.

Willis said that she wanted to resolve the election interference case before the 2024 presidential election, in which Republican nominee Trump could possibly face Biden in a rematch. The defendants will have until noon on Friday, Aug. 25 to turn themselves in, Willis said.

Read the 98-page indictment here.

Willis’ investigation gained momentum after a recording of a phone call was made public in which Trump asked Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough Georgia votes to sway the election in his favor.

“Fani Willis has brought a case that is as large and as comprehensive as the attempted coup itself; looking at that nationally but also through the lens of Georgia,” said Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at public policy think-tank The Brookings Institution and CNN legal analyst. “It’s one of the most important cases that has been brought in the history of our country.”

Below is a list of some of the allegations listed in the indictment that led the grand jury to find probable cause against the former president and 18 others.

Trump’s attorneys, advisors

Rudy Giuliani, former Trump attorney and ex-New York City mayor: At Georgia Legislative hearings following the 2020 election, the ex-U.S. attorney promoted conspiracy theories about election fraud while advocating for lawmakers to intervene on Trump’s behalf. Among Giuliani’s recommendations was that an alternate slate of GOP electors should cast votes for Trump despite state election officials confirming Biden the winner.

Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows: Alleged to have set up a Jan. 2, 2021, phone conversation in which Trump asked Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to tilt Georgia’s election in the outgoing president’s favor. The conversation took place a few days prior to the Jan. 6th U.S. Capitol attack as Congress was set to certify Biden’s election. The indictment also alleges Meadows texted a Georgia Secretary of State investigator in December asking if Fulton County’s ballot signature verification could be sped up if Trump’s campaign provided financial assistance.

Ex-Trump attorney John Eastman: He promoted a dubious legal argument that he claimed could lead to Vice President Mike Pence overriding the 2020 presidential election results.

Sidney Powell, attorney: Indicted on charges of tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines in Coffee County voting systems breach. Powell contacted a computer forensics company to help recover data from voting equipment.

Jenna Ellis, attorney: Accused of making false statements about election fraud to state officials in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona in an attempt to have illegitimate electors appointed in those states, the indictment says.

Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro: Provided the documents signed by Georgia’s Republican electors in an attempt to have Congress consider them as legitimate electoral votes for Trump, according to the indictment.

Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Trump’s top environmental lawyer: Alleged to have conspired in election interference by attempting to solicit the U.S. attorney general and deputy attorney general in December 2020 to provide false statements to high-ranking elected officials in Georgia and several other states that the U.S. Department of Justice had identified significant concerns that might have changed the outcome of the election.

2021 Georgia GOP false electors

One of the focal points of the election interference probe are the events that led up to and followed the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting where sixteen Georgia Republican electors, who signed false election certificates that were sent to the vice president and other government officials to be counted by Congress.

The bogus Republican electors met at the state Capitol on the same day as legitimate state Democratic electors selected Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.

The indictments do not cover the entire slate of Georgians who signed the fraudulent electoral certificates. At least eight of the electors have accepted plea deals, agreeing to cooperate with Fulton prosecutors, according to court filings.

Former Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer: The staunch Trump supporter helped coordinate and served as a Republican fake elector as they cast their ballots in favor of Trump while meeting inside the state Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020.

Cathleen Latham: Latham is ex-chair of the Coffee County GOP Party who played a role in the voting systems breach at Coffee County’s election office in 2021. Surveillance footage, uncovered by plaintiffs embroiled in a voting system security lawsuit, shows Latham leading forensics experts for Trump-allied lawyers into the Coffee County election offices in order to gain unfettered access to the Dominion Voting Systems used statewide for elections. Latham was also indicted for serving as a Republican false elector.

State Sen. Shawn Still: The Norcross Republican is serving his first term in the state Legislature and has previously served in leadership positions with the Georgia Republican Party.

Other Fulton County election interference indictments

Former Coffee County Elections Director Misty Hampton and bail bondsman Scott Hall: Both were indicted on charges of tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines related to the Coffee County voting breach.

Stephen Cliffgard Lee, Harrison W.P. Floyd and Trevian Kutti: Indicted on charges related to making numerous calls and sending text messages to Fulton County poll worker Ruby Freeman, who in 2020 became a prime target of Trump and other conspiracy theorists pushing unfounded ballot stuffing allegations when they served as poll workers at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena. According to the indictment, Lee, Kutti and Floyd falsely offered Freeman protection in order to influence her testimony before government officials.

This article was first published by the?Georgia Recorder, a sister publication of Kentucky Lantern in the States Newsroom network.

Attorney General Daniel Cameron addressed supporters at the Galt House in Louisville after easily winning the Republican nomination for Kentucky governor on May 16, 2023. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

Denied records it sought in 2020 from Attorney General Daniel Cameron about a Ballot Integrity Task Force he co-chairs, American Oversight, a national advocacy group, pressed on.

And that set up an ongoing legal battle that open records advocates say was unnecessary and shows Cameron is unwilling to release even the most routine documents related to his office.

American Oversight “got stonewalled by the attorney general,” said Amye Bensenhaver, co-director of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition, which tracks access to public information on its Facebook page.

Under Kentucky law, the attorney general is the first stop for anyone who believes they were wrongly refused public records. It’s up to that office to review the dispute and issue a formal legal opinion.

That means that after Cameron’s office refused to provide records of the task force, American Oversight had to appeal to Cameron’s office, asking it to overturn its own decision.

It declined, responding to American Oversight with an attorney general’s opinion declaring Cameron’s office did not violate the state open records law in refusing to release the records.

Now a court battle over the records is ongoing and the outcome could have a significant impact on which records the attorney general must release when it comes to his own office, Bensenhaver said.

“Is this an important case? You bet,” said Bensenhaver, a lawyer who previously worked as an assistant attorney general in Kentucky for 25 years reviewing open records cases and writing opinions.

“They are establishing a scenario in which they are not accountable,” Bensenhaver said of Cameron’s office.

A Cameron spokeswoman did not respond to requests for comment.

Jon Fleischaker, a Kentucky First Amendment lawyer with decades of experience in open records, said that as attorney general for the past 3 ? years, Cameron has established a poor track record when it comes to upholding public access to government information.

“Anyone who suggests he is a proponent of transparency is just wrong,” said Fleischaker, whose clients include The Courier Journal and the Kentucky Press Association. “He is an opponent of transparency.”

Meanwhile, the dispute continues in Franklin Circuit Court more than a year after Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled Cameron must produce nearly all documents sought by American Oversight, an open records advocacy organization based in Washington D.C.

Its request was part of a broader effort by the group to examine records of similar election task forces around the country, some looking into largely unfounded allegations of fraud and misconduct swirling around the 2020 presidential election in which President Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump.

In Kentucky, the “attorney general’s office fought our efforts to shed light on the task force’s activities and priorities,” American Oversight spokesman Jack Patterson said in an email. “It took American Oversight’s lawsuit and a court order to compel the disclosure of public records.”

Documents Cameron eventually released included routine records of scheduling meetings and absentee ballot tracking —“nothing to indicate the task force was anything more than a publicity stunt,” Patterson said.

The dispute continues, with American Oversight arguing Cameron’s office has not searched for and produced all records required under Shepherd’s order.?

Cameron’s office insists it has.

While Cameron’s office did not agree with Shepherd’s ruling, it has elected to comply, it said in a filing in April.

“Although the office maintains it was correct in withholding various records . . . it chose to comply with the court’s opinion and order by providing all records the court ordered it to produce,” Heather Becker, a lawyer for Cameron’s office said in the filing.

Bensenhaver said she can’t figure out why Cameron initially objected to releasing seemingly routine documents sought by American Oversight, such as communications, schedules, agendas and minutes of meetings of the task force set up to review conduct of elections and investigate irregularities.

“I think it’s kind of fascinating that he’s going to erect these barriers to fairly innocuous records,” she said.

Patterson, the American Oversight spokesman, said the records showed that Kentucky’s task force, like others established in other states, ended with the same findings.

“None of these task forces found any evidence of widespread fraud and Kentucky’s Ballot Integrity Task Force was no different,” he said.

American Oversight also requested similar records from Secretary of State Michael Adams, a task force co-chair, who complied with the request, according to court records.

But Cameron’s office has established a pattern of denying requests for its records even while ruling in favor of those seeking information from other state agencies or offices, Bensenhaver said.

Track record ‘untarnished’

In a January post on the Kentucky Open Government site, Bensenhaver noted that Cameron’s office in recent months had ruled against several state officials who denied records requests including the agriculture commissioner and the state treasurer.

“But in at least 12 open records appeals of his office’s handling of requests for public records of his own agency, Attorney General Danial Cameron found no violation of the law,” said Bensenhaver, who sarcastically observed: ?“His track record is virtually untarnished.”

The 12 cases are from 2020 to 2022 and cover topics ranging from a pending prosecution to records sought by the Kentucky Democratic Party of Cameron’s communications with other Republican attorneys general.

Cameron, a Republican, is running against Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, in the 2023 governor’s race.

Bensenhaver noted that in two opinions in January, Cameron found that Beshear’s office had violated open records law by denying in part requests from the Republican Party of Kentucky for records of communications between officials about unemployment claims and school closures during the COVID pandemic.

‘No exceptions’

When American Oversight first requested documents about the task force from Cameron, the attorney general’s office responded by claiming it had identified 14 items but refused to release all but one — a single page of a meeting agenda.

American Oversight then appealed to the attorney general and received the opinion upholding the refusal. In Kentucky, attorney general open records opinions have the force of law unless appealed to circuit court.

So the group filed a lawsuit challenging the opinion, and in July 2022 Shepherd ruled in favor of American Oversight’s right to the records and also directed the attorney general to search for additional records.

“This court is doubtful that a mere 14 records in possession of the (attorney general) are responsive to the plaintiffs open records request,” Shepherd said in the order.

After searching again, Cameron’s office turned over 395 pages of records, American Oversight said in a court filing. Of those, 85 were new and 310 pages were records previously identified but withheld.

The newly-discovered records consisted of calendar invitations, emails and records related to absentee ballots, the filing said.?

Whether any more material remains is the subject of the ongoing dispute.

Shepherd on July 18 ordered American Oversight to question representatives of Cameron’s office in depositions for purposes of “fact finding.”?

The two sides then agreed to ask for additional time to resolve the dispute, which Shepherd granted.

Meanwhile, Shepherd’s ruling of July 2022 establishes two important limits on the attorney general’s power to withhold records, Bensenhaver said.

Cameron’s office, in initially refusing to release all but one page of the task force records, cited two exceptions:?

One, the records withheld might relate to a criminal investigation and therefore were exempt from disclosure; and two, items such as emails about meetings, schedules and agendas were preliminary and therefore exempt.

Shepherd rejected both claims, saying that neither appeared to apply to a public task force created to monitor elections that was announced through a press release.

“The public already knows that the task force exists,” his order said.

According to Shepherd’s order, “no exceptions apply,” Bensenhaver said.

Meanwhile, the task force has conducted little activity in recent months and hasn’t issued any findings about its work, Michon Lindstrom, a spokeswoman for the secretary of state said in an email.

It “typically meets before and sometimes after an election,” Lindstrom said. “But it is a discussion group; it does not take actions or implement policy — so it does not issue reports.”

In Mount Vernon, Ohio, a yard sign against Issue 1 which would have made it harder to get voter initiatives on the ballot. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal)

Ohio voters have rejected state Issue 1, which sought to make it harder for voters to pass constitutional amendments, the Associated Press has projected.

The full counting of unofficial results is ongoing, but the AP has officially projected that the “No” side has won.

As of 9 p.m., 1,262,555 votes had been counted, and the No side was winning 60% to 40%.

Results will remain unofficial until they are certified by county boards of elections later this month. Issue 1 was the only question on the ballot Aug. 8.

Issue 1 proposed to raise the threshold for passing amendments to the Ohio Constitution from a simple majority of 50% plus one to 60%. It also proposed to require citizen amendment initiatives gather signatures from all 88 Ohio counties instead of the current 44, and sought to eliminate a 10-day curing period to correct invalidated signatures.

The controversial measure was first introduced by Republican Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose and Ashville Republican state Rep. Brian Stewart late last year. After failing to place it on the May primary ballot, Ohio Republican lawmakers brought back a special August election for the proposal this summer, after eliminating most August elections with legislation in December 2022.

Ohio voters are deciding if it’s too easy to pass ballot measures. Other states are watching.

LaRose originally denied that the effort to make it more difficult for voters to pass constitutional amendments was tied to an abortion rights amendment proposal that will be considered by Ohio voters in November. However, in a letter to fellow Republican lawmakers shortly after introducing the proposal, Stewart said they should support the effort to stop both the abortion rights amendment as well as any further anti-gerrymandering reform voters might bring.

On May 22, LaRose told a Seneca County Republican Party dinner that Issue 1 was “100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”

LaRose campaigned vigorously to try to convince voters to pass the proposal, making campaign appearances with an anti-abortion lobbyist named Mike Gonidakis, and sharing a debate stage with Gonidakis on television to argue for the Yes side.

An opinion poll conducted in July showed 59% of Ohioans support placing abortion rights in the state constitution.

Issue 1 was opposed by a coalition of more than 240 bipartisan groups across Ohio, four bipartisan former governors, five bipartisan former attorneys general, the Libertarian Party of Ohio, the Ohio Green Party, the Ohio Forward Party, and a wide variety of union groups,?as well as good-government groups such as the League of Women Voters of Ohio and Common Cause Ohio.

The Issue 1 amendment change was brought to the ballot with the votes of all 26 Ohio Senate Republicans including Senate President Matt Huffman, and 62 out of 67 Ohio House Republicans including House Speaker Jason Stephens.

Issue 1 was endorsed by LaRose as well as Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted, Attorney General Dave Yost, Ohio Auditor Keith Faber, Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague, Ohio U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, and groups including Ohio Right to Life, the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the Ohio Restaurant Association, the Ohio Farm Bureau, and the Center for Christian Virtue.

Ohio Capital Journal is sister newsroom of Kentucky Lantern as part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.?

David Leist of Columbus, left, a field organizer for Ohio Citizen Action, hands registered voter Richard Hall a flyer with information while canvassing against Ohio Issue 1 which if passed at the Aug. 8 special election would require a 60% vote to pass future citizen-initiated amendments, including the Reproductive Freedom Amendment, which will be on the ballot in November, on July 25, 2023, in a neighborhood on the northeast side of Columbus. (Photo by Graham Stokes for Ohio Capital Journal)

CLEVELAND — Ohioans over the last century have used the state’s ballot initiative process to pass constitutional amendments that raised the minimum wage, integrated the National Guard and removed the phrase “white male” from the constitution’s list of voter eligibility requirements.

Now, lawmakers want to make it much tougher for an initiative to be approved. Opponents of the effort, who are leading in the polls, say doing so would undermine democracy. Whoever prevails, the verdict could reverberate far beyond the Buckeye State, as other states also eye limits on ballot initiatives.

Since mid-July, Ohioans have been voting on a new ballot measure, drafted by the Republican-controlled legislature and known as Issue 1, that would require future initiatives to be approved by 60% of voters, rather than the simple majority needed now. Also, starting on Jan. 1, 2024, the measure would mandate that, to get an issue on the ballot in the first place, backers gather signatures in all 88 Ohio counties, double the 44 now needed.

GOP lawmakers and their supporters say it’s too easy for out-of-state interests to use the initiative process to change the state’s constitution. Among other examples, they point to a 2009 ballot measure that legalized casino gambling in the state, which passed with 52% of the vote after national gambling interests spent over $50 million in support.

States Newsroom partnered with News 5 Cleveland to meet the organizers and canvassers on the ground. The team spent one day with opponents of Issue 1 and the next with supporters.

“We believe that a 60% threshold is absolutely critical to protecting our constitution from these outside influences,” state Sen. Jerry Cirino, a Republican, said in an interview at the headquarters of the Lake County GOP in Painesville, about 30 miles east of Cleveland.

And, though it isn’t a message they emphasize publicly, Republicans also have said that they want to make it easier to stop a measure to protect reproductive rights that will be on the ballot in November.

“After decades of Republicans’ work to make Ohio a pro-life state, the Left intends to write abortion on demand into Ohio’s Constitution,” Rep. Brian Stewart, a leader of the push for Issue 1, wrote in a letter to colleagues in December. “If they succeed, all the work we accomplished by multiple Republican majorities will be undone.”

“Some people say this is all about abortion,” Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in May, in a video obtained by News 5. “Well, you know what? It’s 100% about keeping a radical pro-abortion amendment out of our constitution.”

LaRose, who for months had denied that Issue 1 was about abortion, added that the higher threshold for approval also would be useful down the road to combat other “dangerous plans” from “the left,” including raising the minimum wage and legalizing marijuana.

Power grab seen

Opponents of Issue 1 — a coalition of over 200 groups — call it a brazen power grab by the legislature that threatens Ohio’s democracy.

With state lawmakers entrenched in power in Columbus thanks to gerrymandered maps, opponents argue, the ballot initiative process is the last meaningful avenue left for ordinary Ohioans to effect change. Issue 1 would raise the costs both of the signature-gathering process, by making organizers hire canvassers in all 88 counties rather than just half, and of the campaign itself, by requiring that 60% of voters approve. The result would be to make ballot initiatives usable only by deep-pocketed special interests, opponents say.

And, they add, it would threaten the principle of one person, one vote by allowing just 40% of voters plus one to override the clear will of the people.

“Issue 1 would end majority rule as we know it,” Jen Miller, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Ohio, told a raucous crowd at a July 20 rally for the “No” campaign at a union hall in Boardman, just outside Youngstown.

Opponents also accuse the GOP of trying to sneak the measure through by setting an Aug. 8 election date — a time when politics is the furthest thing from many voters’ minds — to depress voting rates, since lower turnout is often thought to help Republicans. In last year’s August primaries, turnout dropped to a meager 8%.

Still, the early signs suggest that turnout will be strong.

In the first 13 days of early voting, 231,800 Ohioans voted in person, according to numbers released July 28 by the secretary of state’s office. That’s a higher rate of votes per day than the 136,000 people who voted in person during the first nine days of early voting for last November’s high-profile and competitive U.S. Senate race.

However voters come down, other states will be watching closely.

From Arizona to the Dakotas to Florida, legislators are working to make it harder to get initiatives passed into law, or on the ballot at all. In doing so, they’re taking aim at a form of direct democracy that’s emerged in recent years as a favorite tool of advocates looking to enact popular policies — on issues from health care to the minimum wage to democracy reform — that elected politicians have failed to prioritize.

Sarah Walker, the policy and legal advocacy director for the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which works to support progressive ballot measures, said she views the push to restrict ballot initiatives as closely tied to higher-profile efforts, in some states, to tighten voting laws in what voter advocates have called suppression.

“It’s ultimately another step on the road towards authoritarianism and towards consolidated power,” said Walker. “And what happens in Ohio is going to shape … whether or not these attacks on direct democracy are going to continue.”

Ballot initiatives grow popular

Ballot initiatives have found themselves in state lawmakers’ crosshairs just as they’ve become a key method to subvert those lawmakers’ power.

A quarter-century ago, conservatives started using the initiative process — which exists in about half of all states — to make gains they were unable to achieve through legislation, on issues from voter ID to criminal justice to same-sex marriage.

In Ohio, a 2004 gay marriage ban put on the ballot by GOP lawmakers — reportedly at the urging of top White House political strategist Karl Rove — was credited with super-charging conservative turnout, helping President George W. Bush win the state, and with it, reelection.

But after Republicans took full control of a slew of state governments in 2010, the shoe switched to the other foot.

Shut out of state capitols, progressives in many states poured resources into the ballot initiative process, which they’ve used throughout the last decade — including in deep-red states like Utah, Idaho, Kansas, and Arkansas — to expand access to Medicaid, protect abortion rights, boost the minimum wage, establish paid sick leave, reform the redistricting process, liberalize voting rules, legalize marijuana and more.

In some states where Republican legislators have little fear of losing their majorities, the ballot initiative process has become their opponents’ most significant check on lawmakers’ power.

The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center counts 76 state bills introduced this year that would make the initiative process harder to use — often by creating tougher signature requirements or by raising the threshold for approval, the two methods used by Issue 1.

Last fall, Arizona voters approved two measures, both backed by the legislature, that restricted the initiative process. Voters rejected a third, further-reaching measure that would have rendered the process all but moot by letting lawmakers amend or repeal initiatives already passed by voters.

Arkansas this year raised the number of counties where initiative supporters must gather signatures from 15 to 50. North Dakota voters will weigh in on a measure next year that would amend the constitution by raising the threshold for initiatives to 60%.

And in 2020, Florida imposed tougher signature-gathering requirements for the initiative process — a response in part to the passage in 2018 of a measure re-enfranchising people with past convictions, which the legislature had already weakened via legislation.

Some of these efforts have failed. South Dakota voters in June 2022 rejected a bid by the legislature to raise the threshold for ballot measures to 60% — which one top lawmaker acknowledged was aimed at foiling a measure on the November ballot to expand Medicaid. (The Medicaid expansion ultimately passed with 56% of the vote.)

And in Missouri, legislation that would have required ballot initiatives to gain 57% approval passed the House but died in the Senate in May. Republicans, who control state government, have vowed to try again next year. As in Ohio, lawmakers have said they want to stop an abortion rights measure, which could be on the 2024 ballot in the state.

“There is a common thread between all these efforts,” Elena Nunez, the director of state operations at Common Cause, told reporters. “They are responses to people using the ballot measure process to address the important issues of the day — things like economic justice, democracy and voting rights, and reproductive health.”

Nunez added: “We are seeing states where the legislature is not only not doing that —?they are taking efforts to make sure that the people themselves can’t do it either.”

Abortion access?

Ohio’s Issue 1 popped up because of one reason: abortion.

When swing states started enshrining abortion access into their constitutions in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down Roe v. Wade, Ohio reproductive-rights groups jumped on board. They organized a November ballot measure to do the same for their state.

In May, the Republicans who control the Ohio Statehouse responded by passing a joint resolution to put their own measure, Issue 1, on the ballot. As legislators voted, hundreds of protestors, including law enforcement, union workers and nurses, demonstrated outside the chambers.

The resolution called for an August special election, meaning that if Issue 1 passed, the abortion rights measure in November would need to win 60% of the vote.

That threshold could well be the difference between victory and defeat. Of the six abortion-rights ballot measures to have been held since Roe was struck down, four — those in Kentucky, Montana, Michigan, and Missouri — have passed with between 52 and 59 percent of the vote. Only in deep-blue Vermont and California did they win over 60%.

But there was one problem with lawmakers’ plan. Back in December, they had passed a bill to eliminate the vast majority of August special elections, which have an abysmal turnout rate and cost $20 million. A coalition of Issue 1 opponents filed a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court challenging the August special election date, citing the recent change in law. In 1897, they noted, the Ohio Supreme Court stated that the legislature couldn’t amend statutes by passing joint resolutions.

The court’s Republican majority allowed the election to move forward, finding that the legislature could override itself to set an election date.

Proponents of Issue 1 say they want to stop wealthy special interests from coming into the state. But the effort is being bankrolled in part by Richard Uihlein — an out-of-state billionaire and a major supporter of groups that helped organize the rally on Jan. 6, 2021 that led to the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol — who gave over $4 million to a pro-Issue-1 PAC Protect Our Constitution.

Newly filed campaign finance documents reveal that the PAC has raised about $4.8 million. Uihlein’s donations have been 82% of the group’s total support. But out-of-state interests aren’t just funding the vote yes side.

One Person One Vote, the anti-Issue 1 PAC, has raised more than $14.8 million, according to the filings. The largest lump sum was $1.8 million from the Tides Foundation, a progressive social advocacy charity based in California. In total, 83% of the funds raised by the vote no campaign have also been from out-of-state interests. However, these include national organizations that have chapters in Ohio, like the National Education Association.

Some of the ads run by Issue 1 supporters have been called misleading. One declares: “Out-of-state special interests that put trans ideology in classrooms and encourage sex-changes for kids are hiding behind slick ads.” Neither the abortion-rights measure nor any other potential Ohio ballot measure in the works relates to trans issues.

LaRose, too, has received criticism for campaigning energetically for Issue 1 while being responsible for overseeing the vote in an unbiased way as the state’s top elections official. In July, he also announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate, in a competitive Republican primary.

“We don’t expect, especially this close to the election, for the secretary of state to be out there as the chief cheerleader of Issue 1,” Catherine Turcer of Common Cause Ohio told News 5 recently.

A spokesperson for LaRose did not respond to a request for comment at that time.

Polling favors opponents

A Suffolk University/USA Today poll released July 20 found that 57% of registered Ohio voters oppose Issue 1, while 26% support it, with 17% undecided.

That has some Issue 1 opponents talking about triumphing by a margin large enough to make a statement to the legislature.

“I don’t want to just win this, I want to win this big,” Jaladah Aslam, an organizer with the Ohio Unity Coalition, a civil rights group, told the crowd at the Boardman rally. “I want to send a message to them to stop messing with us.”

Getting the resounding victory they want will depend on how effectively Issue 1’s opponents can mobilize their voters. By July 28, the campaign said it had knocked on over 63,000 doors and participated in more than 15,000 conversations since May.

“Overwhelmingly, folks who know about the issue are excited to vote no or they’ve already voted no,” said Tatiana Rodzos, an organizer for Ohio Citizen Action, a progressive group playing a leading role in the “No” effort.

As he went door-to-door on a recent afternoon in Westlake, a Cleveland suburb, Mike Todd found plenty of potential voters who didn’t know about the election.

“It’s kind of voter education,” said Todd, the field director for OCA. “Making sure folks are aware that there’s even an election going on in August.”

States Newsroom and News 5 followed as Todd went door-to-door on a recent afternoon in Westlake, a Cleveland suburb. Plenty of potential voters said they didn’t know much about the election.

At each door, Todd introduced himself and described the measure as a threat to majority rule that would take power away from regular Ohioans and give it to politicians. Most people promised to study the literature he left and consider the issue.

Playing a key role in the “No” campaign are progressive organizations who may look to use the initiative process to advance their issues. That means not only reproductive-rights groups, but also workers’-rights advocates pushing to raise the minimum wage, anti-gerrymandering activists who want to reform redistricting, and more.

One Fair Wage is collecting signatures for a possible 2024 ballot measure that would boost Ohio’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, from the current $10.10, by 2026. On a recent afternoon, Barry Goldberg, a canvasser for the group, was asking for signatures on a busy shopping street in Cleveland Heights, a small city just outside Cleveland.

If passers-by agreed to sign — and most registered Ohio voters did — Goldberg would then tell them about the election for Issue 1, explaining that it would make it harder to pass initiatives like the minimum-wage measure. He asked them to write their contact information on a separate sheet so that organizers could get them to the polls.

Goldberg said the current rules make it challenging enough to gather the signatures needed to get an issue on the ballot through the initiative process. In the 44 counties required, organizers must get signatures from registered voters numbering at least 5% of the county’s total vote in the last gubernatorial election.

Having to gather signatures in all 88 counties?

“That would kill nearly every ballot initiative before it started,” Goldberg said. “All it would take is someone with a million dollars who didn’t like a bill to just dump money into a handful of counties, and do everything they can to make it harder to get signatures. Something could be wildly popular, and still not even get (on the ballot).”

Making change difficult?

But Issue 1 supporters say trying to change the state’s founding documents should be difficult.

“If a constitutional issue is significant enough to impact all 11.8 million Ohioans, then it should have to garner and demonstrate broad statewide backing for consideration,” the Ohio Restaurant Association and other business groups who oppose a minimum-wage hike said in a May statement backing Issue 1.

Cirino, the Republican senator, agrees.

“The U.S. Constitution has very stiff requirements in order to make amendments,” he said. “The founding fathers designed it that way, so that the Constitution could not be changed on a willy-nilly basis.”

“Yes” campaign leaders have mostly tried to publicly downplay the role of abortion in the effort. But it wasn’t hard to find Ohioans who cited the issue to explain their support for Issue 1.

“The driving force for us to be here was the abortion issue,” said Bob Dlugos, a local voter who stopped in to the Lake County GOP headquarters with his wife to pick up a lawn sign. “I do not want abortion to go up to the date of birth,” said Dlugos. “So that 60% vote is crucial.”

In fact, the proposed abortion-rights ballot measure would allow for abortion to be banned “after fetal viability,” unless a pregnant patient’s life or health were at risk.

But Cirino said passing Issue 1 would have a positive impact beyond abortion.

“Minimum wage, recreational marijuana — there will be other things,” he said. “If organizations realize that they can easily get into the Ohio Constitution with a 50%-plus-one majority, they’re going to be flocking to the state of Ohio to get things done that way.”

And Cirino suggested that making direct democracy too easy undermines the whole idea of representative government.

“Legislators — we are all elected by the people,” he said. “We speak for the people. We are up for election every two years in the House, in the Senate every four years.

“So that gives the people an opportunity to express their views to the legislators,” Cirino continued. “And then we can act accordingly, in their best interests.”

But Issue 1 opponents say that because lawmakers have used the redistricting process to ensure they’ll stay in power, that system isn’t working.

“We’re living under gerrymandered maps,” Mia Lewis, the associate director of Common Cause Ohio, told reporters recently. “There’s super-majorities in both chambers … one party controls the Ohio Supreme Court, and all statewide elected positions. But it’s not enough. They actually want to take away the citizens’ last meaningful way to have their voices heard.”

Turnout

Although polling has favored vote no, and so has the sharp increase in absentee ballots, this election will most likely come down to one thing: voter turnout.

When it comes to Republicans, state data shows they went out to vote twice the amount as Democrats in the 2022 primary. This provides some comfort for Cirino. But Rodzos says he is in for a shock.

“It’s just really motivating to think that supporters of Issue 1, they don’t see that we can do this — but we’re going to do it,” the vote no advocate said. “The energy is there, the excitement is there and the anger is there.”

Until Aug. 8, advocates will continue knocking.

A protester holds a Trump flag inside the U.S. Capitol Building on the steps outside the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The federal indictment accusing Donald Trump of trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 presidential election includes detailed accusations of Trump and his alleged co-conspirators’ pressure on individual state officials.

The central plot to overturn the election, as described in the indictment a federal grand jury in Washington, D.C., handed up Tuesday, involved switching out legitimate slates of electors in multiple states Joe Biden had won with false electors recruited by Trump and his advisers.

The sweeping indictment also accuses Trump and six co-conspirators of using the U.S. Justice Department to falsely insinuate that there were legitimate concerns with the elections in each state and presenting dueling slates of electors to Vice President Mike Pence to create a false controversy about which electors to count.

But those parts of the scheme depended on first creating the slates of fake electors and having state officials grant them legitimacy, according to the indictment.

To gather those fraudulent electors, Trump and his close allies pressured, threatened and lied to state lawmakers and elections officials in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to the indictment.

Trump “and his co-conspirators executed a strategy to use knowing deceit in the targeted states to impair, obstruct, and defeat the federal government function,” the indictment reads.

The scheme grew out of a legal challenge related to the election results in Wisconsin, according to the indictment.

With a recount in the state possible, an attorney identified only as “Co-Conspirator 5” in mid-November proposed gathering slates of alternate electors in the event Trump ultimately won the state. The indictment does not identify alleged co-conspirators by name or initials.

But less than three weeks later, the attorney wrote a new memo that was “a sharp departure” from the lawful strategy in Wisconsin.

The later memo advocated an illegal scheme to have fraudulent electors in key states mirror legitimate electors’ certification process, according to the indictment. The dual slates of electors could then cast doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s electors, according to the indictment.

“The memoranda evolved over time from a legal strategy to preserve the Defendant’s rights to a corrupt plan to subvert the federal government function by stopping Biden electors’ votes from being counted and certified,” the indictment said.

Trump’s aim in each state was the same. The campaigns to recruit false electors in each differed, according to the indictment.

Arizona

Trump’s allies pressured the Republican speaker of the House, Rusty Bowers, to have the Legislature reject the legitimate election results, according to the indictment.

An attorney identified in the indictment as “Co-Conspirator 1” reached out to Bowers after the 2020 election with claims that non-citizens, non-residents and dead people had voted in the state. Trump and the co-conspirator, whose actions match those Bowers attributed to Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, knew the claims were false, according to the indictment.

Much of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s information on the Arizona scheme overlaps with testimony Bowers gave at a June 2022 hearing of the U.S. House committee that investigated Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

At that hearing, Bowers said that when Bowers asked Giuliani for evidence of fraud, Giuliani responded that the Trump team didn’t have evidence, but had “lots of theories.” That quote is attributed in the indictment to “Co-Conspirator 1.”

Bowers, a self-described conservative who voted and campaigned for Trump, refused to cooperate with the effort to overturn Arizona’s election results, saying in a public statement that it would have violated his oath of office.

Another Trump attorney, identified as “Co-Conspirator 5,” contacted him on Jan. 4, 2021, after the state’s electors had been certified, to “urge” Bowers to decertify those electors, the indictment reads. Bowers again refused.

Trump and his team still organized a group of false electors, including then-state party Chairwoman Kelli Ward, but it lacked the backing of the state’s Legislature that Trump had sought, according to the indictment.

Georgia

Trump and his team appealed to Georgia Republicans on two main fronts.

They promoted a video that purported to show suitcases full of illegal ballots being dumped in Atlanta. “Co-Conspirator 1” gave a presentation to a subcommittee of the majority-Republican Georgia Senate that included a video of purported “ballot dumping” at State Farm Arena in the heavily Democratic city. The purpose of the presentation was to mislead lawmakers, according to the indictment.

Giuliani made that presentation, according to testimony to the U.S. House committee.

State elections officials later said the video showed “normal ballot processing.”

Regardless, as a last-ditch effort, Trump personally phoned Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, an elected Republican, on Jan. 2. A recording of that call, which has been previously reported, showed Trump asking the state’s chief elections official to “find” nearly 12,000 votes -— enough to reverse the election results.

In the call with Raffensperger, Trump said the true election results were tainted by fraud, saying dead people had voted and again raising the video from State Farm Arena. He implied Raffensperger would face criminal prosecution if he didn’t do as the president demanded.

Raffensperger also recounted his experience at a U.S. House committee hearing.

Another co-conspirator, another attorney identified as “Co-Conspirator 3,” raised the possibility that voting machines had been used in “massive voter fraud,” according to the indictment. “Co-Conspirator 3”? filed a lawsuit against Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, that claimed voting machines were used to accomplish election fraud, the indictment reads.

Michigan

In December 2020, Trump hosted Michigan’s legislative leaders, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield, both Republicans, at the Oval Office.

During that meeting, he raised a series of false claims of election fraud in the state, according to the indictment. Shirkey responded that Trump had lost not because of fraud, but because he underperformed with certain groups of voters.

After they left the meeting, the lawmakers released a joint statement that they would review the election process, but that they had “not yet been made aware of any information that would change the outcome of the election in Michigan.”

Shirkey and Chatfield later received messages from “Co-Conspirator 1” and another attorney identified as “Co-Conspirator 2” asking for them to use their positions to cast doubt on the election results, the indictment said.

“I need you to pass a joint resolution,” “Co-Conspirator 1” wrote in a text message intended for Shirkey, according to the indictment.

The resolution should say that the election is in dispute because of an investigation of fraud and that the electors sent by the state’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer are not official, “Co-Conspirator 1” said, according to the indictment.

Shirkey and Chatfield proceeded with certifying Biden’s win in the state on Dec. 14, saying they still had no evidence to suggest Biden’s win was illegitimate.

The indictment did not include other details of efforts to overturn Michigan’s election results, such as Giuliani’s appearance at a December 2020 state House hearing where he urged members to “take back (their) power” by rejecting the election results.

Nevada

Nevada’s secretary of state refuted claims from Trump that the state received “tens of thousands of double votes” and experienced other voter fraud, according to the indictment.

In a public document, titled “Fact vs. Myths,” the secretary of state detailed that “Nevada judges had reviewed and rejected them, and the Nevada Supreme Court had rendered a decision denying such claims.”

The indictment notes that after Trump met with “repeated failure” in obstructing the vote through deceiving state officials, he and co-conspirators decided to establish slates of fake electors in seven states, including Nevada.

“Under the plan, the submission of these fraudulent slates would create a fake controversy at the certification proceeding and position the Vice President — presiding on January 6 as President of the Senate — to supplant legitimate electors with the Defendant’s fake electors and certify the Defendant as president,” according to the indictment.

An unnamed co-conspirator in the case, identified in the indictment only as “Co-Conspirator 5,” wrote a memo on Dec. 6 titled “Fraudulent Elector Memo” and one on Dec. 9 titled “Fraudulent Elector Instructions.” Both named Nevada as a “contested” state.

On Dec. 7, two unnamed people identified as “Co-Conspirator 1” and “Co-Conspirator 6” spoke about lawyers “who could assist in the fraudulent elector effort in the targeted states,” according to the indictment.

New Mexico

The indictment says the plan for fake electors began in “early December” in several states, “even New Mexico, which the Defendant had lost by more than ten percent of the popular vote.”

“This expansion was forecast by emails the Defendant’s Chief of Staff sent on December 6, forwarding the Wisconsin Memo to Campaign staff and writing, ‘We just need to have someone coordinating the electors for states,’” reads the indictment.

The indictment says that on Dec. 7, an unnamed person called “Co-Conspirator 1” spoke with someone called “Co-Conspirator 6” about finding attorneys who could help with the effort to establish fraudulent electors in several states and lists New Mexico as one of those states.

On Dec. 10, “Co-Conspirator 5” sent contact points to five of the seven states, leaving out Wisconsin, which had already been sent a memo, and New Mexico.

Three days later, on Dec. 13, “Co-Conspirator 5” wrote and sent fraudulent elector certificates for Trump’s false electors in New Mexico, even though the state “had not previously been among the targeted states, and where there was no pending litigation on the Defendant’s behalf,” according to the indictment.

The next day, on Dec. 14, the campaign filed an election challenge lawsuit six minutes before the noon deadline “as a pretext so that there was pending litigation there at the time the fraudulent electors voted,” according to the indictment.

The same day, the state’s legitimate electors met to officially cast their votes for president, with New Mexico’s six electoral votes going to Biden, who won the state by more than 33,500 votes.

Pennsylvania

In the Keystone State, Trump allegedly began working against the legitimate election results on Nov. 11, 2020, when he “publicly maligned” a Philadelphia commissioner for saying on a news program that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the city.

“As a result, the Philadelphia City Commissioner and his family received death threats,” according to the indictment.

On Dec. 4, Trump re-tweeted a post that called Republican state lawmakers cowards after they said publicly the General Assembly didn’t have the “authority to overturn the popular vote and appoint its own slate of electors, and that doing so would violate the state Election Code and Constitution.”

Trump then repeatedly communicated with the acting attorney general and acting deputy attorney general about false allegations that Pennsylvania reported 205,000 more votes than voters.

“Each time, the Justice Department officials informed the Defendant that his claim was false,” according to the indictment.

Trump then publicly repeated that false statement on Jan. 6, 2021.

?Wisconsin

The indictment notes that a recount of the vote in Wisconsin, which Trump’s campaign petitioned and paid for, actually increased Biden’s margin of victory.

The state’s Supreme Court rejected a challenge from Trump’s campaign on Dec. 14, 2020, with one justice writing that nothing in the case “casts any legitimate doubt that the people of Wisconsin lawfully chose Vice President Biden and Senator Harris to be the next leaders of our great country.”

Wisconsin’s governor signed a final determination on Dec. 21 confirming that Biden “received the highest number of votes in the state and that his electors were the state’s legitimate electors.”

Later that day, Trump tweeted claims about election fraud in the state that he knew were false and demanded “the Wisconsin legislature overturn the election results that had led to the ascertainment of Biden’s electors as the legitimate electors,” according to the indictment.

Less than a week later, Trump communicated with the acting attorney general and acting deputy attorney general on Dec. 27 about a false claim there were more votes than voters in Wisconsin.

“The Acting Deputy Attorney General informed the Defendant that the claim was false,” according to the indictment.

Trump then publicly repeated the claim, having been told it wasn’t accurate or correct, on Jan. 6, 2021.

Kentuckians could no longer use one form of photo ID at the polls without also filing an affidavit under a bill that the Senate approved Tuesday. It now goes to the House. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

In recent years, U.S. politics has been consumed by partisan fights over states’ election policies.

But a new study by two political scientists is causing a stir by finding that state legislators’ changes to election laws — both those that tighten election rules in the name of integrity, and those that loosen rules to expand access — have almost no impact on which side wins.

“Contemporary election reforms that are purported to increase or decrease turnout tend to have negligible effects on election outcomes,” write the authors, Justin Grimmer and Eitan Hersh, political scientists at Stanford University and Tufts University, respectively, in “How Election Rules Affect Who Wins,” which was published online as a working paper June 29.

These laws, the authors write, “have small effects on outcomes because they tend to target small shares of the electorate, have a small effect on turnout, and/or affect voters who are relatively balanced in their partisanship.”

That doesn’t mean these laws don’t matter. Many advocates, as well as the authors themselves, say there are plenty of reasons beyond partisanship to care about voting policy — not least the effect some can have on non-white voters.

“If we can take the temperature down on some of these issues and separate the partisan consequences from some of the other consequences, the public discussion would actually be a lot better,” Hersh said in a phone interview. “Right now, it seems like one of the reasons this stuff is toxic is because every minor thing, from having mail voting to having voter ID, is treated as some democracy-ending reform. And I think that’s quite dangerous.”

Indeed, Grimmer and Hersh’s conclusion, which is largely supported by other recent research, is at odds with the behavior of much of the political and advocacy worlds.

In recent years, the parties and outside groups have poured countless dollars and hours into the battles over voting, seeking to gain an electoral edge, stop their opponents from getting one, or fight voter suppression. Now, some are asking: What does the emerging consensus that these laws have minimal effects on election outcomes mean for that ongoing work?

Elections bill in House?

The study appears just as a heated debate is flaring again in Congress over the partisan and racial impact of recent voting laws.

On July 10, at a U.S. House Administration Committee field hearing in Atlanta, Republican lawmakers unveiled the American Confidence in Elections Act, new legislation that would tighten voting rules in numerous ways.

To make the case for the measure, the GOPers repeatedly criticized Democrats for predicting that Georgia’s 2021 election law, which imposed stricter rules on several types of voting, would suppress votes, especially among minorities. (“The left lied,” declared a GOP video on the issue that was shown at the hearing.)

Republicans noted that the state’s turnout in fact went up last year — though Democrats countered that Black turnout had gone down relative to white turnout.

Grimmer, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, served as an expert witness for Georgia in its defense of the law after the state was sued by the U.S. Department of Justice and voting-rights groups.

Meanwhile, some in the trenches of the voting wars reject the new study’s conclusions out of hand.

“Republicans are targeting the rules of voting because they know they matter,” said the Democratic super-lawyer Marc Elias — who filed the first lawsuit against the Georgia measure — in a statement to States Newsroom. “Studies of cherry-picked practices from years and decades ago may be interesting to some political scientists but they don’t solve the problem of armed vigilantes at drop boxes or states changing laws to make voter registration more difficult.”

As the conventional wisdom has it, laws that restrict access tend to help Republicans, since those most likely to be blocked or deterred by stricter rules — often racial minorities, students, renters and low-income Americans — lean Democratic. And laws that make voting easier, the idea goes, tend to boost Democrats, since the people likely to be helped by them similarly lean Democratic.

Indeed, Republican-led states have lined up to pass restrictive new voting laws, while fighting Democratic efforts to pass expansive laws. Democrats have done the reverse — including raising hundreds of millions of dollars to file court challenges to the GOP’s measures. And at election time, both sides have mobilized vast armies of volunteers to hunt for fraud, or protect voting rights, at the polls.

Politicians have been quick to blame election rules for defeats. Hillary Clinton has said, with little evidence, that between 27,000 and 200,000 Wisconsin voters “were turned away from the polls” in the 2016 presidential election because of the state’s ID requirement. Former President Donald Trump has gone much further, frequently blaming his 2020 loss on loose voting rules that, he falsely claims, enable fraud.

Advocates and much of the media have likewise prioritized the issue, seeing a chance to hold powerful actors accountable, protect or expand access to the political process, or spotlight a set of urgent challenges to U.S. democracy.

But Grimmer and Hersh describe this Sturm und Drang — at least the part that’s focused on partisan outcomes — as a tempest in a teapot.

“The caustic rhetoric that suggests the partisan stakes for election administration reform are very high is detached from empirical reality,” Grimmer and Hersh write. “Even very close elections are decided by margins larger than the magnitude of election reforms we examine in this paper.”

Little evidence of impact on results

Though that finding may surprise political operatives, advocates, and journalists, academic experts say it’s very much in sync with existing research on the issue — making the Grimmer-Hersh study much harder to dismiss as an outlier.

Scholars have struggled to find evidence that changes like early voting and election-day registration have significantly boosted turnout. (One possible exception is mail voting, where at least one recent study did find significant effects, while others didn’t.)

Nor have most studies found that even very controversial restrictive measures do much to lower voting rates. A 2019 paper released by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that strict voter ID laws “are unlikely to have a meaningful impact on turnout or election outcomes.” And a paper published this year by two Notre Dame political scientists found that ID laws “motivate and mobilize supporters of both parties, ultimately mitigating their anticipated effects on election results.”

The Grimmer-Hersh study tries to clarify why the partisan effects are so negligible. Unlike most earlier studies, it doesn’t look only at one type of law — voter ID laws, for example — but rather on the entire category of election laws that might affect turnout, including both those that make voting harder and those that make it easier.

The authors give an example of a hypothetical law that imposes additional requirements for voting, targeting Democratic-leaning groups.

The requirements target 4% of the electorate, and cause a 3 percentage-point decline in turnout among this group — figures that the authors say are consistent with the effects of real laws. The result would be a 0.12 percentage point drop in overall turnout.

That’s already small, but because that group is likely to be around 60% Democratic, not 100%, the swing toward Republicans would be even smaller, just 0.011 percentage points. Only the very closest elections in history would be affected by a swing that tiny.

Even laws that contain several prongs that affect voting in different ways are still likely to affect results only in the very tightest elections, the authors write. North Carolina’s omnibus elections bill currently moving through the legislature there is an example, though it isn’t mentioned in the study.

In one section that may raise the hackles of voting-rights advocates, the authors note that there has been no significant turnout decline in the mostly Southern states that were affected by the Supreme Court’s 2013 ruling in Shelby County v. Holder, which removed the requirement for those states to have their election changes pre-approved by the federal government, to ensure they don’t hurt minority voting. In fact, they say, voting rates among non-whites have increased since the ruling.

Advocates and journalists —?including this one! — have poured resources into documenting the slew of restrictive new rules, from voter ID laws to reductions in polling sites, that were imposed in the wake of Shelby, at times painting the onslaught as an urgent crisis of democracy.

Even far-reaching structural reforms that go beyond targeted measures like voter ID may not do much to affect election outcomes, the paper suggests.

Many predicted that the 1993 National Voter Registration Act, which has added millions to the rolls by requiring motor vehicles departments and other state agencies to offer registration, would help Democrats, the authors note. (“Who wins under this bill?” asked Rep. Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican, during the debate over the measure. The law, he answered, “will result in the registration of millions of welfare recipients, illegal aliens, and taxpayer-funded entitlement recipients. They’ll win.”)

In fact, the authors write, the law had essentially no partisan impact.

‘Beyond the voting wars’

Still, some critics note that many high-profile elections these days, including presidential elections, are decided by razor-thin margins. In both of the last two presidential elections, the winner won three pivotal states by 1.2 percentage points or less — in 2020, it was 0.7 percentage points or less. (And that’s leaving aside Florida 2000, a unicorn event that was so close that almost everything made a difference.)

“[U]sing the Hersh-Grimmer framework, some of these laws would’ve had a plausible chance of swinging the 2016 presidential election because the election was so close,” said Jacob Grumbach, a professor of political science at the University of Washington, via email. “ I could understand people might think that’s a big deal.”

Hersh acknowledged it’s possible that a multi-pronged law, or a set of laws acting together, could cause a swing that big. But he argued that because of the high level of uncertainty involved in the analysis, there’s no reliable way to predict what the partisan effects of a given law will be.

“Yeah, collectively these small policies could aggregate,” Hersh said. “But no one knows how they aggregate. Even the ones that liberals call suppression.”

“There’s no way lawmakers can sit around and be like, ‘OK, we’re going to do these six things and this is going to help Democrats or Republicans,’ and actually know what they’re talking about,” Hersh added.

The authors also acknowledge more than once that there are plenty of valid reasons to worry about election policies that have nothing to do with results —? “such as whether they make voting convenient, more secure, more cost effective, and whether they are motivated by discriminatory intent.” All of those effects would be important to pay attention to, even if they didn’t have a partisan impact.

In fact, both Grimmer and Hersh stressed in interviews that one goal of the paper was to encourage a focus on these other issues by making questions of partisanship recede.

?”States should be seeking out policies that they think will improve the functioning of elections,” said Grimmer. “And they can be comforted knowing that when they make those changes, it’s not going to end up with wild swings in partisan balance.”

Others see a different take-away from the paper.

David Nickerson, a political science professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, was involved in a project that looked at the impact of stadium voting, which took place in the 2020 election at over 48 professional sports stadiums as a convenience measure during the pandemic. Nickerson said project organizers hoped that when they showed stadium voting has no partisan effect, Republican officials would drop their opposition to it.

But that didn’t happen, Nickerson said. The experience suggests to him that differences over how elections should be run — and in particular over how easy or hard voting should be — are as much about ideological principle as they are about political advantage.

“You’ll even hear Republicans openly say they think voting should be harder, and you should only vote if you really want to and care and are committed — which I can’t imagine a Democratic official saying,” Nickerson said. “It’s a different worldview.”

Michael Morse, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, said the study should lead advocates to focus relatively less on laws that affect the individual voting experience, like most voter ID laws, and more on structural issues, like getting more people on the voter rolls, or stopping gerrymandering.

“We have a limited amount of resources for reform,” Morse said. “The agenda for reform should be informed by this type of empirical political science.”

Indeed, the reality that election laws barely affect results is a good thing for building bipartisan coalitions for voting rights, Morse added.

“I would like the public discussion of these issues to be less partisan,” he said. “It’s the only way forward beyond the voting wars.”

While Missouri and Louisiana filed the case, over the last year a number of additional plaintiffs were added who have run into issues with social media companies for spreading misinformation online (Getty Images).

The U.S. Supreme Court released a new ethics code on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023 but Sen. Dick Durbin, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the new rules “fall short of what we could and should expect when a Supreme Court issues a code of conduct.” (Al Drago/Getty Images)

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected North Carolina Republican legislators’ argument that the state courts cannot review laws legislatures pass governing federal elections.

Republican legislators claimed the Elections Clause in the U.S. Constitution makes legislatures the sole state authorities on federal elections law,? including congressional redistricting.

Critics said the high court’s endorsement of the independent state legislature theory would cause chaos with state elections, with states trying to enforce a set of rules for state elections and another set for federal elections. The case drew national attention because of its potential to disrupt election laws around the country.

In a 6-3 opinion, the nation’s high court rejected Republicans’ argument, known as the independent state legislature theory.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote a concurring opinion. Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Sam Alito dissented. Thomas wrote that the case was moot because the NC Supreme Court has already decided the question that brought Republican legislators to the US Supreme Court.

“We are asked to decide whether the Elections Clause carves out an exception to this basic principle,” said the majority opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts.? “We hold that it does not. The Elections Clause does not insulate state legislatures from the ordinary exercise of state judicial review.”

Democrats from former President Barack Obama to Democratic leaders in the North Carolina legislature weighed in with statements supporting the decision.

“Today, the Supreme Court rejected the fringe independent state legislature theory that threatened to upend our democracy and dismantle our system of checks and balances,” Obama said on Twitter.

The opinion affirms the February 2022 decision by the Democratic majority on the NC Supreme Court that congressional districts the Republican majority created were extreme party gerrymanders that required revision.

“The Supreme Court rejected the independent state legislature theory with vigor,” said Neal Katyal, the attorney who represented the non-government defendants in court. “The court adopted the arguments made by my client, Common Cause, in every material respect.”? Katyal answered reporters’ questions at an online news conference Tuesday afternoon.

“I think it’s incredibly important that legislatures have the traditional check and balance that our Founders put on them, which means subject to state courts, subject to state constitutions. State legislatures, after all,? are creations of the state constitutions. The idea that they can act independently of them is really far-fetched and would do grave damage to our constitutional structure.”

Common Cause, the NC League of Conservation Voters, and a group of voters supported by the National Redistricting Foundation were defendants in the case. They sued Republican legislators in state court over gerrymandered districts, which ultimately led to the Republicans’ appeal to the US Supreme Court.

“We beat back the most serious legal threat our democracy has ever faced with today’s ruling in Moore v. Harper,” said Kathay Feng, vice president for programs at Common Cause. “Today’s ruling is a major victory for our rights as Americans to have a government that values every person’s voice and vote.”

In a statement, House Speaker Tim Moore said he was proud of the work he did to bring the case to the nation’s highest court.

Despite today’s opinion, North Carolina Republicans can redraw election districts without concern that state courts will consider claims of partisan gerrymandering.

Before the US Supreme Court could rule, North Carolina Republican legislators petitioned for and received the chance to reargue a redistricting decision the state Supreme Court issued in December that said the Senate districts used for the 2022 elections were unconstitutional.

The court majority in April overturned partisan gerrymandering opinions handed down last year by a Democratic court majority. The Republican-majority opinion said redistricting is the legislature’s job and the courts cannot not judge partisanship.

“Fortunately, the current Supreme Court of North Carolina has rectified bad precedent from the previous majority, affirming the state constitutional authority of the NC General Assembly,” Moore said in his statement.

Roberts wrote that courts “may not transgress the ordinary bounds of judicial review,” but did not say whether the NC Supreme Court had overstepped.

“We decline to address whether the North Carolina Supreme Court strayed beyond the limits derived from the Elections Clause,” the opinion said. “The legislative defendants did not meaningfully present the issue in their petition for certiorari or in their briefing, nor did they press the matter at oral argument.”

When pressed during December’s oral arguments whether the state’s Democratic justices has misinterpreted the state constitution, the Republicans’ lawyer “reiterated that such an argument was ‘not our position in this Court.’”

Lawyers on both sides of the case tried to use the historical record dating back to the founding of the country to bolster their arguments.

Roberts’ opinion said that history supports judicial review.

“State cases, debates at the Convention, and writings defending the Constitution all advanced the concept of judicial review. And in the years immediately following ratification, courts grew assured of their power to void laws incompatible with constitutional provisions,” he wrote.

During oral arguments last year,? Thomas, Alito, and? Gorsuch indicated they supported the Republican legislators’ argument, while Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan challenged their logic and interpretation of history.

The NC League 0f Conservation Voters, one of the parties fighting partisan redistricting and the independent state legislature theory, praised the US Supreme Court decision, but called the state Supreme Court decision “blatantly partisan.”

The US Supreme Court twice asked case participants this year if the state Supreme Court rehearing the gerrymandering case and later, siding with Republican legislators made the federal case moot.

The lawyer representing Republican legislators said the Supreme Court should decide the federal case even though North Carolina’s highest court had given them a victory.

Republicans found agreement from Common Cause, which sued over the redistricting plans and opposed Republicans’ position on the independent state legislature theory. Common Cause wants the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the question because it will keep coming up, its May letter said.

Most of the parties who opposed state Republicans’ position, including the US Solicitor General, told the court the case was moot.

Attorneys for a group of voters who sued over the Republican redistricting plans said in a? recent letter to the Court that since the state Supreme Court had ruled in Republicans’ favor, Republicans no longer had standing and there is nothing more that they could win. Likewise, a lawyer for the NC League of Conservation Voters wrote the case is moot.

Katyal chided lawyers who were Common Cause’s side in court who went on to tell the Court this year that the case was moot.

(Getty Images)

Kentucky will remain with the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, for a year while reviewing possible alternatives to support voter rolls maintenance, Secretary of State Michael Adams said Wednesday.?

Recently, seven Republican-led states have left ERIC, an interstate compact for sharing voter registration data. Some former members like Virginia and Texas plan to create their own data-sharing networks, but a new interstate partnership could be a major challenge, requiring significant time and resources.?

To leave ERIC without a backup plan would be “irresponsible,” Adams said. On the other hand, staying in ERIC would be “equally irresponsible.”

While Kentucky stays in ERIC for the next year, barring it disbands before then, Adams plans to look at alternatives, consider possible statutory changes and confer with other secretaries of state.?

“I will work in good faith with officials in both political parties, here in Kentucky and federally, and if I remain in Office for the 2024 General Assembly, I will work with legislators of both political parties to develop other ways to continue the progress we have made in cleaning up our rolls,” Adams said.?

Adams, a Republican, is seeking a second term in office. He said in his tenure, approximately 330,000 voters have been purged from voter rolls with assistance from Kentucky’s ERIC membership. Through the system, the state has received information about voters who moved out of state and re-registered elsewhere or voters who died after moving out-of-state.?

Because nearly a quarter of ERIC’s members have left or are planning to leave, annual dues will increase, Adams said. Another issue for Kentucky is that only one neighboring state is left in the compact, and interstate relocation to and from Kentucky typically involves its neighbors, “Kentucky is about to pay a lot more money to get a lot less information.”?

A recent court filing by Adams said Kentucky’s dues this year are $40,039 and are projected to increase to $58,797, or, if Texas leaves as expected, $65,115.?

Adams said he asked the judge who presided over Judicial Watch’s 2017 lawsuit against former Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes if Kentucky is obligated to remain in ERIC. The federal judge ordered Grimes to clean up voter rolls in compliance with the National Voter Registration Act.?

Part of the settlement included Kentucky stepping up compliance efforts, which included joining ERIC in 2019, Adams said.?

Adams said he will not remove Kentucky from ERIC if the court does not allow it. If the departure is permitted, Kentucky will need time to review alternatives to getting necessary voter information for maintaining roles, the cost of alternatives and if legislative action is needed.?

The U.S. Department of Justice, which intervened in the Judicial Watch case, has offered assistance in reviewing alternatives, Adams continued. He also said “receipt of information from federal agencies like the U.S. Postal Service and the Social Security Administration would greatly help.”

“Prior to last year, ERIC was not controversial,” Adams said. “Unfortunately, like any effort at bipartisanship in recent history, it has come under attack. I have consistently defended ERIC against falsehoods about its funding and operations, even risking my re-nomination for this Office to do so. ERIC has helped Kentucky comply with the law and conduct fair elections. While my administration will never cave to conspiracy theorists, it nevertheless is true that the value of ERIC to us going forward is a debatable question.”

The boundaries of Kentucky's six congressional districts, redrawn in 2022, are being challenged before the Kentucky Supreme Court, which will hear arguments in the case Sept. 19. Of special interest is what political scientist Stephen Voss calls the "Comer hook," extending the 1st Congressional District from the Mississippi River to Frankfort. (Kentucky Legislative Research Commission)

A fight over Kentucky’s state House and U.S. congressional districts is now before the state Supreme Court, more than a year after new maps were adopted by the Republican supermajority that controls the General Assembly.

On March 23, the high court agreed to take the challenge by state Democrats, bypassing the state Appeals Court, “in the interests of judicial economy.”

Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the maps established through redistricting — which a lower court judge already found to be gerrymandered, or manipulated to favor one party — also are unconstitutional.

“This is purely a legal question, not a factual one on whether the maps are unfair,” said Joshua Douglas,? a University of Kentucky law professor who studies election and constitutional law.

The Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing in the dispute on Sept. 19.

Districts, which define the area an elected official represents, are adjusted every 10 years by the legislature to reflect changes in population and generally favor the party in power.

The legal fight comes in advance of next year’s primary and general elections in which all 100 House races and Kentucky’s six congressional seats could be contested.

Two days after the Nov. 8, 2022 general election, Franklin Circuit Judge Thomas Wingate ruled that the state House and congressional districts enacted earlier that year resulted from “partisan gerrymanders” but he declined to find them unconstitutional.

The case wound up before the Supreme Court after Kentucky Democrats appealed the decision.

They argued the Republican maps split up many more counties in House districts than allowed by the state constitution.

Democrats also objected to the 1st Congressional District based in Western Kentucky, reconfigured to include Franklin County — an alleged move to dilute its Democratic votes and accommodate incumbent U.S. Rep. James Comer, a Republican who hails from Tompkinsville in Monroe County but owns a home in Frankfort.

Republicans have scoffed at the challenge, with a spokesman for the state GOP previously calling it a “frivolous lawsuit.”

A spokesman for the Republican Party of Kentucky recently called the legal challenge a “desperate move by Andy Beshear and the Democrats to manipulate the political process,” adding that Democrats in past years have controlled the redistricting process, yet “Republicans achieved supermajorities on maps drawn by the Democrats.”

Democrats called on the Supreme Court to reject maps that resulted from Republicans working “behind closed doors to draw districts that cut up communities for partisan gain,” Anna Breedlove, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Party of Kentucky, said in a statement.

“If this isn’t stopped now, Republicans will only grow bolder in their partisan gerrymandering in coming decades allowing Frankfort politicians to decide who they represent, picking easier paths to power and reelection, rather than allowing Kentuckians to decide who represents them,” her statement said.

Douglas said he believes Democrats stand a chance, based on Wingate’s finding that both the House and congressional districts are gerrymandered.

“I think there’s a decent chance of success for the plaintiffs,” said Douglas, who is considering filing a brief in the case urging the court to “robustly construe the state constitution to protect against extreme partisan gerrymandering.”

D. Stephen Voss, an associate professor of political science at UK, declined to speculate on the possible outcome of the case. But he said Republicans may find it difficult to defend what he called the “Comer hook,” in which the 1st Congressional District was stretched to reach into Franklin County, presumably to benefit the incumbent.

The reconfiguration makes no sense and doesn’t comport with the accepted standard that congressional districts are supposed to be compact, Voss said.

“Almost any realistic solution has Jamie Comer losing Franklin County,” he said.

Voss said one theory about adding Franklin County, which tends to vote Democratic, to Comer’s district is that it was to remove it from Republican Rep. Andy Barr’s 6th District to protect him in future elections.

But if that were the goal, Voss said, it would have made more sense to add Franklin County to Republican Rep. Thomas Massie’s 4th District which includes Northern Kentucky.

That makes more sense geographically than the Comer “hook,” he said. “That was just a liability for the Republicans,” Voss said. “It gave them congressional districts that were hard to defend.”

Still, there’s no guarantee another version of the district maps, especially for the state House seats, will help Democrats in a state so heavily dominated by the GOP, Voss said.

Should the Supreme Court throw out the current maps and order the General Assembly to start over, “they can come back with a map that is no better for the Democrats,” Voss said.

“Indeed, they could come back with a map that’s worse,” said Voss, who testified as an expert witness at the trial last year on behalf of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, a Republican defending the redistricting plans.

And it’s uncertain whether the Supreme Court will rule before the Jan. 5 filing deadline for candidates who wish to run in the May 2024 primary election.

A change to the maps could affect the decision of candidates about the district in which to seek office.

A decision sooner than later is better for Democrats when it comes to planning campaigns, Voss said.

“If Democrats are going to have any hope of clawing back territory, the earlier they know what the districts are going to be, the better,” Voss said. “The longer this takes, the more likely Democrats are going to suffer what they suffered last time.”

Last year, Democrats faulted the new districts for their loss of several House seats in the November election, increasing the Republicans’ supermajority to 80 out of 100 representatives.?

And the 2024 election features a number of races that could be affected by any changes to districts with all 100 House and Kentucky’s six congressional seats up for election.

The presidential race also on the 2024 ballot will heighten interest among voters, said Michon Lindstrom, communications director for the Kentucky Secretary of State.

“In presidential years, we have the best turnout,” Lindstrom said. “There will be a lot of interest next year.”

Douglas, the law professor, said he believes the case could be decided before the January filing deadline as well as in time for the legislature to act on new maps when it convenes in 2024, if necessary.

“I do think there’s time for the court to rule and, if it strikes down the maps, for the legislature to redraw the maps — even next January,” he said. “It passed the current maps in a matter of days.”

Wingate ruled in favor of Republicans after deciding that the House and congressional districts, though gerrymandered, were not necessarily unconstitutional.

“The Kentucky Constitution does not explicitly prohibit the General Assembly from making partisan considerations during the apportionment process,” Wingate’s order said.

He added: “The court understands that partisan gerrymandering challenges have been sweeping the nation and that plaintiffs want this court to look at and rely upon decisions made by other states’ high courts, but this court is only concerned with the Kentucky Constitution and what is permitted under it.”

This story has been updated with a statement from Republican Party of Kentucky spokesman Sean Southard.

Voters sit in polling booths to cast their vote on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Lexington. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Abbey Cutrer)

This year’s state legislative sessions are almost all wrapped up. And on voting and elections policy, the headlines have largely focused on a new wave of restrictive voting laws passed in big Republican-led states like Florida, Texas, and Ohio, as well as expansive laws approved in Democratic-led states like Michigan, Minnesota, and New York.

But another development has flown under the radar — one that may be equally revealing about the priorities driving those in charge of voting policy in many states.

Eight states — Tennessee, West Virginia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Arkansas, Indiana, and Alabama —? had turnout rates of below 50 percent when averaged between? the last two national elections.

Yet these states did almost nothing this year to boost turnout, according to an analysis by States Newsroom of new election laws and policies (though one, Hawaii, did make meaningful reforms in previous sessions). In fact, several moved in the opposite direction, imposing new restrictions that are likely only to make voting harder.

How Kentucky fares

• Kentucky’s voter turnout averaged 54.8% in the last two general elections. (The turnout to vote for president in 2020 was 64.8%. In 2022, it was 44.8%.)?
• Kentucky ranked 39th among states on the “cost of voting” index.
• Only four states have fewer early voting days than Kentucky’s three days — and those four states have none. (Kentucky allows “no-excuse” in-person absentee voting the Thursday, Friday and Saturday before an election.)

The three days of early voting were added in 2021 by Kentucky’s Republican legislature, which also ?allowed counties to establish voting centers where any registered voter in each county can cast a ballot.

Michon Lindstrom, communications director for Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, said: “Turnout has not increased in the elections held since our administration persuaded the legislature to quadruple the number of voting days. Although we are proud to have increased voting convenience, we do not believe the number of voting days is a primary driver of voter turnout. As your article notes, Tennessee rates 50^th of 50 in turnout, yet Tennessee has two weeks of early voting, compared to three days of early voting in Kentucky.”

Because these eight states are mostly small or mid-size, and none are swing states — Hawaii is deep blue, while the rest are solidly red — their voting policies tend to attract less national attention than their larger and more competitive counterparts.

But they’re home to around 32 million people. And, by settling for feeble voting rates, they weaken U.S. democracy writ large.

Turnout rates matter for the health of a democracy, because the higher the rate of voting, the more closely the result reflects the will of the people, and the more legitimacy it carries. That’s especially true because turnout rates vary by age, race, income level, and more.

The findings highlight how inaction can be as powerful as active voter suppression. Policymakers in some of these states don’t recognize their low turnout rates as a problem: Top election officials in several have said encouraging voting isn’t their job.

U.S. turnout lags

American democracy has a turnout problem, experts on elections warn.

In the 2020 election, almost two-thirds of eligible voters cast a ballot — the highest rate in decades. Yet that still ranked the U.S. 31st out of 50 developed countries examined in a 2022 Pew Research Center study of turnout among the voting-age population — well behind places with far less robust democratic traditions like Indonesia, the Philippines, Brazil, Hungary, and Slovenia.

U.S. midterm elections have even lower voting rates. In 2022, just 46% of eligible voters turned out. And that was higher than all but one previous midterm this century.

Plenty of factors affect turnout, from the appeal of the choices on the ballot to the effectiveness of the campaigns at mobilizing their backers. But broadly speaking, states with more voter-friendly rules tend to see higher turnout than states with more restrictive rules.

In 2022, Oregon, which made voting easier than any other state that year, according to a well-regarded ranking system, had the highest turnout in the country — more than twice that of Tennessee, which ranked 38th on ease of voting.

Six of the eight states with the lowest voting rates in the States Newsroom analysis ranked 35th or lower on ease of voting as measured by a cost of voting index.

This correlation between ease of voting and turnout gives lawmakers and election officials from states with low turnout rates a clear path to starting to fix the problem: Make voting easier.

But a close look at what those eight lowest-performing states did this year shows that — with perhaps one exception — easing voting is not the path they’re pursuing.

Tennessee:?

Average turnout in last two elections: 45.4% (50th out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 38th out of 50

After a midterm election in which turnout dropped to just 31.3% — less than 1 in 3 eligible voters — the Volunteer State passed two elections bills this year, neither of which is likely to significantly affect turnout. In addition, lawmakers introduced several restrictive measures, including one, quickly withdrawn, that would have eliminated early voting in the state.

The office of Secretary of State Tre Hargett, a Republican, said it has partnered with businesses, sports teams, chambers of commerce and non-profit organizations to promote voting. It also runs outreach programs encouraging eligible high-school and college students to register to vote.

Julia Bruck, a Hargett spokesperson, attributed Tennessee’s low voting rates to a lack of competitive races.

“Competitive races drive turnout, not the referees,” Bruck said via email. “Tennessee has not seen as many competitive statewide races.”

Asked why Tennessee’s turnout lags even other states with a lack of competitive races, Bruck did not respond.

West Virginia

Average turnout in last two elections: 46.2% (49th out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 19th out of 50

The Mountaineer State passed only one elections bill this session, which isn’t likely to have a major impact on turnout. The League of Women Voters of West Virginia wrote in a February letter to lawmakers that the state’s rules present “many barriers,” and called for increased access.

“The legislature has offered no such improvements,” the group added.

West Virginia joined several other GOP-led states in withdrawing from the Electronic Registration Information Center, an interstate compact for sharing voter data, after right-wing activists accused the group, without evidence, of partisan bias. Experts have said that leaving ERIC will make it harder to maintain accurate voter rolls.

Secretary of State Mac Warner, a Republican, doesn’t appear in a hurry to boost voting in the state. Testifying before Congress in April, Warner said West Virginia has “perhaps the best balance” in the country between election access and election security, and called for an end to the federal requirement that state motor vehicle departments offer voter registration — the single most popular way for new voters to register.

In a separate appearance, Warner said it’s not his job to increase turnout. “That is a candidate, party or campaign’s job, to get out the voters,” he argued. “It’s my job to run a free, fair and clean election.”

Warner’s office did not respond to a request for comment on any efforts to increase turnout.

Mississippi

Average turnout in last two elections: 46.4% (48th out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 49th out of 50

The Magnolia State passed three elections bills this year, two of which had the effect of further restricting access (the third will likely have little impact on turnout). One makes it easier for election officials to remove voters from the rolls, while the other outlaws “ballot harvesting,” in which third parties, often local community organizations, collect absentee ballots from voters and mail or bring them to election offices. Voter advocacy groups have said the ban, which is being challenged by the ACLU as a violation of the Voting Rights Act, will make it harder for elderly voters and those with disabilities, among others, to cast a ballot.

After turnout in last year’s June primaries sank to just 11%, Secretary of State Michael Watson, a Republican, called the number “discouraging,” and led registration drives at high school and college football games and other venues.

Watson’s office did not respond to a request for comment about additional ways to boost turnout.

Oklahoma

Average turnout in last two elections: 47.7% (47th out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 35th out of 50

The Sooner State passed five elections bills this session. None appear likely to have a major impact on turnout, but one suggests an aversion to efforts to expand access: It makes it much harder for Oklahoma to join ERIC or any other interstate compact that, like ERIC, requires outreach to eligible but unregistered voters — a key factor in the decisions of some other red states to leave ERIC.

Another new law requires the state to obtain death records from the Social Security Administration, in order to identify registered voters who may have died, then work with local election officials to potentially remove them from the rolls.

Oklahoma’s Board of Elections didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on efforts to boost turnout.

Hawaii

Average turnout in last two elections: 48.2% (46th out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 4th out of 50

The Aloha State passed only one elections bill this session, which isn’t likely to significantly affect turnout.

But Hawaii stands out from most of the other low-performing states, because in recent years it has implemented reforms, giving it an extremely voter-friendly system today. In 2019, it switched to universal mail elections, and in 2021 it passed automatic voter registration. It also offers same-day registration, in which voters can register at the polls.

Though Hawaii’s 2020 turnout rate of 55.2% was the lowest in the nation, the state also saw the biggest turnout increase compared to the previous presidential election, when turnout was just 42.5%.

That suggests the new mail-balloting system has the potential to lead to significant improvements over time. Automatic voter registration, too, has helped boost turnout in other states, but it has generally taken at least one cycle to have an impact.

Still, some election officials don’t sound eager to help with the turnaround. The chief elections administrator for Honolulu County, where over two-thirds of Hawaiians live, has said, as paraphrased by a local columnist, that “it is not up to government to inspire people to vote.”

“People vote because they are motivated or optimistic, or they are passionate about the issues or the candidates,” the administrator, Rex Quidilla, said last year.

Arkansas

Average turnout in last two elections: 48.7% (45th out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 48th out of 50

Arkansas passed 16 elections bills this session. And yet, despite the state’s third-from-botttom ranking on turnout, not one aimed to significantly expand access. In fact, taken together, they’re likely to make voting even harder.

One measure creates a criminal penalty for election officials who mail voters unsolicited absentee ballots or absentee ballot applications — something state law already barred them from doing. Another creates an “Election Integrity Unit” to investigate election crimes, and a third bans the use of drop-boxes to vote.

Still another amends the state constitution to require the secretary of state to do more to remove ineligible voters from the rolls, including creating a system to verify citizenship. And a fifth expands a ban on accepting money from outside groups to help run elections. That was an issue taken up by Republicans nationally after funds provided by an organization financed in part with a one-time donation in 2020 by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg played a key role in ensuring that the 2020 elections ran smoothly despite the covid-19 pandemic.

Secretary of State John Thurston, a Republican, has suggested that expanding access isn’t a top priority. “You have to take ownership of your vote,” he said last year. “We do want it to be convenient, but hard to cheat. Accuracy is more important than convenience.”

Thurston’s office did not respond to a request for comment on efforts to increase turnout.

Indiana

Average turnout in last two elections: 49.1% (44th out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 36th out of 50

The Hoosier State passed two significant elections bills this year, both of which could further limit voting. One makes it harder for local governments to adopt their own election reforms without state approval — it comes after cities across the country have found innovative ways to expand voting access. The other affects the ability to vote more directly: It bars the mailing of unsolicited mail ballot applications, and requires voters requesting a mail ballot to submit additional identifying information.

Secretary of State Diego Morales, a Republican, campaigned on his support for a slew of new voting restrictions, but has backed off most of them since taking office in January.

Morales spokesperson Lindsey Eaton said via email that the secretary of state has sought and received special funding from the legislature for voter outreach, and has also provisionally received a federal grant to be used in part for voter outreach.

The office is also working with the Indiana Broadcasters Association on a public information campaign to promote voting. And Morales has announced plans to conduct voter outreach at county fairs in all 92 counties in the state.

“As the first Latino elected to a statewide office in Indiana, increasing voter turnout across the state remains a top priority for Secretary Morales,” Eaton said.

Alabama

Average turnout in last two elections: 49.8% (43rd out of 50)

Ease of Voting Ranking: 45th out of 50

The Yellowhammer State’s legislature adjourned in early June without passing any elections bills. A measure that Democrats and civil rights groups called voter suppression passed the state House but unexpectedly did not receive a vote in the Senate. The bill would have made it a crime to help a voter with an absentee ballot, though it contained exceptions for family members and some others.

Like Warner in West Virginia, Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican who has denied the 2020 election results, rejects the idea that he should encourage voting. Allen withdrew Alabama from ERIC on his first day in office, and explained that he did so in part because ERIC requires states to contact eligible but unregistered voters and urge them to register.

“Our job is to help give (local election staff and law enforcement) the resources they need to make sure our elections are run in the most safe, secure, and transparent way possible,” Allen said soon afterward. “Our job is not to turn people out. That is the job of the candidates — to make people excited to go to the polls.”

Allen’s office did not respond to a request for comment about efforts to increase turnout.

Republican Attorney General Daniel Cameron, right, shakes hands with supporters during a June 13 campaign stop. (Kentucky Lantern photo by McKenna Horsley)

SHEPHERDSVILLE — Republican Daniel Cameron’s stump speech Tuesday in Shepherdsville hit familiar themes — his Christian faith, conservative values, criticism of his rival, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.?

But there was one big departure — the attorney general did not highlight his endorsement from former President Donald Trump, who was set to appear in a Miami courtroom almost two hours later.

The campaign stop, which had a packed room at The Fish House Bar & Grill in Shepherdsville, was one of several the attorney general has made since winning the Republican nomination for governor. Last week, he went to Elizabethtown, Bowling Green and Owensboro.?

“If you all don’t take anything else from what I say today, I want to be painstakingly clear on one thing: We will retire Andy Beshear from the governor’s office,” Cameron said to cheers from the room.

Cameron bested 11 other candidates in a crowded Republican gubernatorial primary with 48% of the vote about a month ago. Throughout the long primary season, he repeatedly brought attention to Trump’s support of his candidacy. Trump endorsed Cameron early on in the race. The former president is facing felony charges after he was accused of illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. He pleaded not guilty Tuesday afternoon.

When asked about his reaction to the latest indictment by reporters, Cameron said he is focusing on the general election and defeating Beshear.?

“I continue to say that Kentuckians have concerns about the weaponization of government power,” Cameron said. “And we’ve talked a lot about Hunter Biden and Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, but there’s been no indictments there. And so I think a lot of Kentuckians have concerns about whether there are two different justice systems depending on who you are.”

His response mirrored his statement reported by the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Louisville Courier-Journal last week after news of the indictment broke.?

Cameron also talked about education during his stop, saying Beshear’s approach has been “hostile to the teachers of Kentucky.” Cameron then referred to comments from Education Commissioner Jason Glass saying that teachers should follow their school districts’ policies when addressing transgender students as part of their employment. The issue has become a Republican talking point both among gubernatorial candidates and in the state legislature.?

Around 100 supporters attended Cameron’s Tuesday stop, which was in Bullitt County and about 30 minutes from downtown Louisville. The restaurant was packed with Republican voters, law enforcement officials, members of the General Assembly and local government leaders, including Bullitt County Judge-Executive Jerry Summers, who introduced Cameron.?

Danny and Sherrie Oldham, who are from Spencer County, attended the event because they wanted to display their support for the attorney general. They said he was their pick during the primary election. After Cameron addressed the crowd, they said they liked what he said about abortion and issues with Beshear.?

“We need a true leader, somebody who’s going to stand up to the far-left and bring us back to where we need to be,” Sherrie said. “The last three years, we have gotten way off the path.”?

Cameron told reporters Tuesday that he is still deciding on a running mate. Kentucky state law allows candidates for governor to designate their lieutenant governor pick by the second Tuesday in August, which is Aug. 8 this year.

The general election is expected to be expensive. Another round of campaign finance reports are due within the next few days. According to Medium Buying, the Beshear campaign has spent $1.61 million on TV and radio ads. DGA-affiliated Defending Bluegrass Values has spent $1.33 million and Pro-Beshear PAC Preserve, Protect and Defend has spent $47,000. Republican Governors Association’s State Solutions has spent $419,000 on TV and radio ads.?

In his final remarks to the crowd, Cameron turned his attention toward November and encouraged volunteering with his campaign or spreading the word to others.?

“There are 21 weeks essentially left in this race for governor,” he said. “I want you all to put it all on the line.”?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down Alabama's congressional maps is expected to provide a boost to other lawsuits alleging racial gerrymandering. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)

The efforts come at a time when the youth vote has been surging. (Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images)

A top Republican election lawyer recently caused a stir when she told GOP donors that the party should work to make it harder for college students to vote in key states.

But the comments from Cleta Mitchell, who worked closely with then-President Donald Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election, are perhaps less surprising than they seem.?

They follow numerous efforts in recent years by Republican lawmakers across the country to restrict voting by college students, a group that leans Democratic. And they come at a time when the youth vote has been surging.

At an April 15 retreat for donors to the Republican National Committee, Mitchell, a leader in the broader conservative push to impose new voting restrictions, called on her party to find ways to tighten the rules for student voting in several battleground states.

Mitchell’s comments were first posted online by the independent progressive journalist Lauren Windsor.

With Republicans now enjoying veto-proof majorities in both of North Carolina’s chambers, Mitchell said, the party has a chance to crack down on voting by students there.?

“We need to be looking at, what are these college campus locations and polling, what is this young people effort that [Democrats] do?” said Mitchell. “They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm, so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed.”?

“And we need to build strong election integrity task forces in those counties,” Mitchell added, naming Durham, Wake, and Mecklenburg counties — all of which are Democratic strongholds and are home to large colleges.

Wisconsin ‘is a big problem’

The Election Integrity Network, which Mitchell chairs, works to build what it calls Election Integrity Task Forces, in which volunteers aim to root out fraud and illegal voting.

Mitchell also lamented that in Wisconsin and Michigan, both of which offer same-day voter registration, polling sites are located on campuses, making it easy for students to register and vote in one trip.?

“So they’ve registered them in one line, and then they vote them in the second line,” Mitchell said.

“Wisconsin is a big problem, because of the polling locations on college campuses,” Mitchell continued. “Their goal for the Supreme Court race was to turn out 240,000 college students in that Supreme Court race. And we don’t have anything like that, and we need to figure out how to do that, and how to combat that.”

The recent race for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, which was won by the liberal candidate backed by Democrats, saw record campus turnout.

Mitchell also brought up New Hampshire, which has a higher share of college students than any other state, as well as statewide elections that are often decided by just a few thousand votes, The Granite State has seen a series of efforts in recent years to impose stricter rules for student voting, despite no evidence of illegal voting by students.?

“I just talked to Governor Sununu, and asked him about the college student voting issue that has been a problem,” Mitchell said, referring to the state’s Republican governor, Chris Sununu.?

“He thinks it’s fixed. We just need to have an active task force to make sure it’s fixed, and do our look back about whether or not they did go back and make sure those college students who presented, who said they were residents, really were.”

Finally, Mitchell falsely claimed that, thanks to President Joe Biden, people who apply for federal student loan aid are required to fill out a voter registration form.?

A White House executive order does urge federal agencies, including the Department of Education, to offer voter registration opportunities. But no one is required to register.

Banning student IDs for voting

Mitchell’s remarks weren’t focused only on student voting.?

She also declared that if Republicans win full control of Virginia state government this year, they should eliminate early voting and same-day registration in the state. And she said that any group “that’s got democracy in their name — those are not friends of ours.”

But the comments about voting by college students deserve particular scrutiny because of an ongoing multi-state push to tighten the rules for student voters — including by banning student IDs for voting.?

Mike Burns, the national director for the Campus Vote Project, which works as an arm of the nonpartisan Fair Elections Center to expand access to voting for college students, said the tens of millions of students enrolled in higher education across the country already face a unique set of hurdles in casting a ballot: They’re less likely than other voters to have a driver’s license or utility bill to use as ID; they’re less likely to have a car to get to an off-campus polling site; and they often move each year, requiring them to go through the registration process anew each time.

Few states, Burns added, design their election systems to address these challenges. Despite Mitchell’s fear about students rolling out of bed to vote, a 2022 Duke University study that looked at 35 states found that nearly three quarters of colleges did not have voting sites on campus.

Given this backdrop, “it’s just that much more exasperating,” Burns said, “to hear someone talk about intentionally trying to make that even harder, and to do it for political reasons.”?

Surging youth vote

The issue of student voting has flared lately thanks to a recent surge in the youth vote. The midterm elections of 2018 and 2022 saw the two highest turnout rates for voters under 30 in the last three decades. And in 2020, half of all eligible voters under 30 turned out, a stunning 11-point increase from 2016.?

In 2018, those voters went for Democratic candidates by a 49-point margin, and in 2020 they went for Biden over Trump by 24 points — making them easily the most Democratic-leaning age group in both years.

That’s spurred Republican legislators to take action. This year alone, three GOP-controlled states — Missouri, Montana, and Idaho — have tightened their voter ID laws to remove student IDs from the list of documents voters can use to prove their identity.?

Montana’s law was struck down as a violation of the state constitution. Idaho’s is being challenged in court by voting rights groups.

One of the Idaho bill’s backers, state Rep. Tina Lambert, said she was concerned that students from neighboring Oregon or Washington might use their student IDs to vote in Idaho, then also vote in their home state. In fact, there has not been a single instance of fraud linked to student IDs in the state.

Idaho saw a 66% increase in registration by 18- and 19-year-olds between November 2018 and September 2022, by far the highest in the country, a Tufts University study found.?

A fourth state, Ohio, passed a strict voter ID law with a similar impact. Ohio doesn’t allow student IDs for voting, but previously it did allow utility bills. So colleges would issue students zero-dollar utility bills to be used for voter ID purposes. The new law, which is also being challenged in court, eliminates that option by requiring a photo ID.

In Texas, where growing numbers of young and non-white voters threaten to upend the state’s politics, one Republican bill introduced this session would ban polling places on college campuses. The bill’s sponsor, state Rep. Carrie Isaac, has described it as a safety measure aimed at keeping outsiders off campus, since campus polling places also serve the wider voting public.

Voter advocates charged in a lawsuit that a 2021 Texas law establishing strict residency requirements would particularly burden college students, by preventing them from registering at their prior home address when they temporarily move away for college. A federal judge last year struck down much of the law, but the decision was reversed on appeal.

‘They just vote their feelings’

Efforts to make it difficult for students and other young people to vote are almost as old as the 26th Amendment, which went into effect in 1971, enfranchising Americans aged 18 to 20.?

In one Texas county with a large, historically Black university, the chief voting official responded to the measure by requiring students to answer questions about their employment status and property ownership, before being stopped by a federal court in a key ruling for student voting rights.

Following the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision weakening the Voting Rights Act, Texas imposed a voter ID law that didn’t allow student IDs, even those from state universities, though it did include handgun licenses. And North Carolina passed a sweeping 2013 voting law that, among other steps, ended pre-registration of high-school students.?

Two years earlier, Wisconsin passed a voter ID law that does allow student IDs from state universities, but mandates that the ID have an expiration date and have been issued within the last two years — requirements that many student IDs don’t meet. Though some colleges have created special voter IDs, advocates say the issue still generates significant confusion among students.

New Hampshire has often been a hotspot for efforts to restrict student voting. Backers of these efforts have at times argued that students don’t have as much stake in the community as other voters, since they might not stick around after college.

A 2021 bill that died in committee would have barred students from using their campus address to register. “People who go to college in New Hampshire, unless they are really bona fide permanent residents … should vote by absentee ballot in their home states,” the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Norman Silver, told Stateline. “It’s a matter of simple equity.”

Back in 2011, Rep. William O’Brien, then the House speaker and advocating for a bill to tighten residency requirements, was even blunter.?

“They go into these general elections, they’ll have 900 same-day registrations, which are the kids coming out of the schools and basically doing what I did when I was a kid, which is voting as a liberal,” O’Brien said. “That’s what kids do. They don’t have life experience, and they just vote their feelings and they’re taking away the towns’ ability to govern themselves. It’s not fair.”

Burns, of the Campus Vote Project, said that kind of sentiment not only runs counter not only to the purpose of the 26th Amendment, but to any notion of voting as a civic good.?

This is a formative process,” said Burns. “We know from research that if people start to vote at a younger age, they will stay involved. It puts them on a trajectory of being more involved in civic life for the rest of their life, and I think that’s a good thing.”

“Every community is better when more people have their voices heard. And that includes young people,” Burns added. “So regardless of who someone’s going to vote for, we think they should have equal access.”

Randall Weddle, then a candidate for London mayor, listens as Gov. Andy Beshear helps celebrate the opening of WB Transport's new warehouse in April 2022. (Screenshot with permission of WYMT)

FRANKFORT – The largest batch of contributions fueling the reelection ambition of Gov. Andy Beshear does not come from a personal injury law firm, a highway contractor or other traditional sources of money given to an incumbent Democratic governor of Kentucky.

It comes from newcomers to the world of political giving and from a traditionally Republican stronghold — donors associated with the freight-hauling company WB Transport of London and its co-founder Randall Weddle, the mayor of London.

Within the past 17 months the reelection campaign of Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party have received at least $305,500 from this group of donors, none of whom had ever before made a big political contribution.

Randall Weddle himself did not contribute. But his wife gave $32,000, his son gave $17,000, his daughter $16,500, his mother $7,000, his mother-in-law $7,000, a sister $17,000, another sister $15,000. Other relatives gave, as did others associated with WB Transport and Weddle.

Scroll through the PDF at right to view the contributions Kentucky Lantern puts in the WB Transport/Weddle group.

In addition, the WB Transport/Weddle group appears to be one of several groups of first-time Kentucky donors giving maximum contributions to Beshear and his party who are engaged in the reverse logistics/liquidation business which re-sells merchandise that has been returned by the original buyer.

The analysis of campaign finance reports filed by the Beshear campaign and the Kentucky Democratic Party shows that since Dec. 6, 2021 those two political committees have received:

• $149,000 from the family and a business associate of Paul Guastello Jr., a reverse logistics consultant from Kansas City, Missouri. (See list below.)
• $168,162 from 33 donors employed by liquidation and discount outlets across the country – donors from Hickory, North Carolina to Fontana, California. (See list below.)
• $68,000 from four members of the family that owns H & K Pallet Sales, of London. (See list below)

On Jan. 3, Beshear’s reelection campaign put out a news release boasting it had raised a record $5.2 million and stressing the importance of the fundraising success of the Kentucky Democratic Party.

Kentucky Lantern decided to take a closer look at who gave the money that provided the popular sitting governor with a massive fundraising lead over Republican rivals in this year’s race for governor.

Candidates and political parties are required by law to disclose the names of donors and the amounts they gave. These contributions can be found on the websites of the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance and the Federal Election Commission.

But the online listings are voluminous, the websites difficult to navigate.

Kentucky Lantern examined those contributions — names and occupations of donors, the amounts they gave and on what date — to identify groups of associated donors who have given the most.

The examination found big contributions from many groups that donated to past campaigns of Beshear and his father, former Gov. Steve Beshear: state employees, Beshear appointees to state boards and commissions, law firms, state contractors, and businesses closely regulated by the state like Churchill Downs and Kentucky Downs.

But the analysis found surprising groups of new donors – clusters of big givers with links to the reverse logistics trade from Kentucky, Kansas City, and coast to coast.

“Reverse logistics” is a term applied to the processes that follow many products after they have been returned by customers to the retailer. The process takes the product backward on the supply chain with the goal of retaining as much value as possible for resale at a discount by wholesale, liquidation, or “pallet sales” stores.

Randall Weddle, who won election as mayor of London last November in his first bid for public office, said he had no role in raising the money. He said he sold WB Transport and its related reverse logistics company about two years ago.

He said he is aware that his wife, other family members and some close friends are enthusiastic supporters of Beshear and donated. But he said he doesn’t even know some of the current WB Transport employees who were donors. And he said there is no reason to question the contributions.

“What is wrong with that – if you believe in the individual and you believe that they’re good for the state?” Weddle asked. “It happens in every race across this nation – that friends, families that get together, that give to the person they believe in with no special interest.”

Each contribution listed in reports is within legal limits of how much a person can give, though nearly all were at the limits: $15,000 per year to the party and $2,000 to Beshear’s primary election campaign.

Bundling political contributions is legal as long as the contribution is voluntary and the contributor is not reimbursed for the donation. It is illegal for a person to exceed the donation limits by making excess contributions in the names of other people.

Only two of the 19 donors in the WB/Weddle group had ever before made a political contribution, and those were very small, according to online records of the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance and Federal Election Commission.

Weddle warned against drawing false conclusions.

“Everybody you’ve named has money…” Weddle said of his family and associates who gave. “Everybody we know, who my wife talks to, they all support Beshear entirely.”

Given the dominance of the Republican Party in the General Assembly, he said it is important that Beshear be re-elected. “We need a balance of powers. We’ll have a superpower if Beshear don’t win,” Weddle said.

As to why he did not give, Weddle said, “I only gave to Trump. Basically, that’s the only guy that I’ve given to. … I’ve been an apolitical person.”

Weddle is registered as a Republican and in late 2020 and early 2021 he gave $25,120 to a pro-Donald Trump committee. But he has made smaller contributions to other Republicans: $2,000 to the campaign of Republican Jonathan Shell for agriculture commissioner last year, and in 2019 gave $2,800 to the re-election committee of U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell and $500 to then-Gov. Matt Bevin’s reelection campaign.

Others among the group of WB Transport/Weddle donors who were contacted by phone shed little light on how the contributions all came about.

“I donated because I wanted to,” said Jennifer Weddle, declining further comment. Jennifer Weddle, identified in contribution reports as manager of The Depot on Main, Corbin, donated $15,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party and $2,000 to the Beshear campaign in December.

Robert Gray, an official of WB Transport who has given $30,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party and $2,000 to Beshear’s campaign in the past 18 months, hung up when asked about his contributions.

Jeremy Bryant, a Corbin attorney who has represented Weddle, said he and his wife contributed a combined $34,000 to help Beshear because “We like his policies, we like the way he handled COVID….I’m an attorney, he’s an attorney, and he’s always struck me as a reasonable individual.”

Beshear declined to be interviewed, said Eric Hyers, manager of Beshear’s re-election campaign. Hyers also declined an interview and did not address questions emailed to him about the WB Transport/Weddle contributions.

Hyers released a statement that said Beshear’s record as a popular and effective governor makes it “no surprise that a broad, bipartisan coalition is enthusiastically supporting his bid for a second term. Thousands of Kentuckians have contributed to his reelection.”

While Weddle said he sold WB Transport two years ago, he appears to have retained at least some unofficial connection with that business. Last April, he hosted the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the opening of a 200,000-square-foot warehouse of WB Transport.

Beshear traveled to London to also speak at the event.

And last June, Beshear appointed Weddle as a member of the Kentucky Transportation Center Advisory Board.

Weddle and Hyers each said there is no connection between the London visit or appointment and the Weddle family contributions.

“Gov. Beshear has never asked me, or my family, for nothing. And we’ve never asked him for nothing,” Weddle said.

Hyers said in his statement that Beshear “has made more than 2,000 board appointments, including Democrats, Republicans and Independents from all parts of the commonwealth. These appointments are always based on qualification…”

Guastello Group – $149,000

Another $149,000 in contributions to the Democratic Party and Beshear campaign came from Paul Guastello Jr., his family and a business associate and the business associate’s wife. They all live in the Kansas City, Missouri area.

Guastello said he has done business in Kentucky and praised the job Beshear is doing as governor. “Andy actually reminds me as the kind of guy that could go way beyond the governor of Kentucky,” he said.

He said he does not recall how he came to meet Beshear. And he declined to elaborate on his business activity in Kentucky or the contributions. “I don’t discuss politics,” he said.

He said he is not affiliated with WB Transport, but ended the phone interview when asked if he was ever affiliated with Randall Weddle.

Reports filed by the party and Beshear campaign list Guastello’s occupation as an “education consultant” for “St. Pius.”

But in recent reports documenting his contributions to two Missouri political committees he listed his employer as “Reverse Logistics.”? And his profile on the social media website LinkedIn lists his occupation as “Reverse Logistics Consultant.”

Records filed with the Kentucky secretary of state show that in late 2020 Randall Weddle was no longer listed as the member of WB Transport LLC. Instead, the new member of WB Transport was listed as “Reverse Logistics Management,” a Missouri limited liability company. Owners of an LLC are called members, according to the Internal Revenue Service.

The latest WB Transport annual report filed with the secretary of state is signed by a Kansas City, Missouri attorney who did not return phone messages from Kentucky Lantern.

Weddle said in the telephone interview that he has “heard of” Guastello but has never had any business with him and “I don’t really know him.”

Another contributor from the group, Charles Cuda of Gladstone, Missouri, said he wanted to check with Guastello before commenting on why he and his wife contributed $34,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party and Beshear on New Year’s Eve in 2021. He asked Kentucky Lantern to send him an email. It did. Cuda did not reply.

Liquidators and discount stores – $168,162

Nearly three dozen additional donors from the world of liquidation and discount stores gave at least $168,162 to Beshear’s campaign and Democratic Party.

These donors are mostly from North Carolina, California, and Texas, but a few are from Kentucky. And one of them appears to have a link in Kentucky to a Weddle company.

Kentucky Lantern concluded they constitute a group because each is employed by some kind of discount outlet (“Liquidation Warehouse,” “Logistical Warehouse,” “Home Center Warehouse,” “Flaming Deals,” etc.), none had ever given a Kentucky contribution before, contributions were in maximum amounts and they were made on about the same dates.

These contributions came in three distinct waves: $22,000 from 11 donors in March of 2022; eight donors gave a combined $110,162 to the Kentucky Democratic Party in late August of 2022; 18 gave $36,000 to the Beshear campaign in late September of 2022.

Jonathan Manhan, of Canoga Park, California, is one of the donors listed as giving $2,000 to the Beshear campaign in the first wave. He is the owner of BCS Inc., a company that his LinkedIn profile says buys and sells surplus inventories.

Manhan signed corporate paperwork filed with the Kentucky secretary of state in late 2021 as the authorized agent of JRD London, LLC. Weddle is the organizer and member of JRD London, LLC, according to secretary of state records.

Manhan said in a brief phone interview that he has property in Kentucky and knows Weddle. He asked that questions be sent to him via email, but did not reply to an email.

Weddle said he has never been a business associate of Manhan. Weddle said Manhan may have said he knows of him because, “I’m big in the logistics world.”

Chad Faouri, of Logistical Warehouse in Newton, North Carolina, gave $2,000 to Beshear in the first wave, and $15,000 to the Kentucky Democratic Party in the second.

“We like the governor. I think he’s doing good. …” Faouri said in a phone interview. “We do have a business in Kentucky, we know a lot of people in Kentucky.”

When pressed about the contributions of many other North Carolinians on the same date, and who his contacts are in Kentucky, Faouri said he had to take another phone call and hung up.

Ahmad Dohast, a customer service worker at Home Center in Louisville, gave $2,000 to Beshear’s campaign in the third wave on Sept. 30, 2022.

“I honestly would not like to discuss that,” Dohast said when asked about the contribution. “I thought it was something pertaining to work. But thank you for calling.”

Samir Hamideh, of Lomita, California, who gave $2,000 to Beshear in the first wave and $5,162 to the party in the second, hung up when asked about the contributions.

H & K Pallet Sales, London – $68,000

Four members of the Woods family that owns H & K Pallet Sales in London who had never before made a political contribution each gave as much as the law allows to the Beshear campaign and Democratic Party on Dec. 6, 2021. (Each gave $2,000 to Beshear and $15,000 to the party.)

Kenneth Woods of H & K Pallet Sales, said he does not do business with any Weddle businesses and declined further comment. “What I do with my money is up to me,” Woods said.

This article has been updated to clarify some of Mayor Randall Weddle’s earlier political contributions.

Gov. Andy Beshear has tried to appeal to his own reputation for transparency to explain his apparent support for a bill that would reduce the public's access to records of official government business. (Photo by Arden Barnes)

This article has been updated with information from the most recent campaign finance reports filed last week.

?FRANKFORT, Ky. – Gov. Andy Beshear and the Kentucky Democratic Party held a big early fundraising lead over Republicans at the outset of this year when Beshear stands for reelection.

Beshear’s campaign manager Eric Hyers said that, because Beshear has been an effective leader who has brought tens of thousands of jobs and billions in investment to the state, “thousands of Kentuckians have contributed to his reelection.”

Thousands have contributed. But who are the people, and groups of people, who contributed the most to fill that brimming war chest?

The law requires names of donors, and amounts they gave, be disclosed to the Federal Election Commission or Kentucky Registry of Election Finance and posted on those websites for anyone to see.

But the websites provide limited transparency for anyone trying to find groups of donors that bundled batches of contributions, or find unusual patterns of donations. Listings of online donors are very long, and the websites of the FEC and KREF can be confusing to navigate.

In an effort to enhance transparency, Kentucky Lantern decided to make its best effort at analyzing those contributions. Specifically, the analysis looked at nearly 10,000 itemized contributions totaling about $5 million to the Beshear campaign from Oct. 1, 2021 through Dec. 31, 2022, and it reviewed about 5,700 contributions totaling nearly $10 million to the Kentucky Democratic Party between Nov. 5, 2019 and Feb. 28, 2023.

The process began by focusing on the largest individual donors to the Kentucky Democratic Party who also gave to the Beshear campaign. We looked at names, addresses, employers of donors, and the dates the contributions were made. We searched the internet for further information about the largest donors. Political MoneyLine and Open Secrets, two online databases of political contributions were invaluable to the research, as were the online corporate records of the Kentucky secretary of state.

Such an analysis may not necessarily produce a definitive list of the largest bundles of donors. That may not be possible without talking to thousands of donors. But contacting donors often does not shed much light. Messages left with officials of some large donating groups listed below (Swartz Enterprises, HealthTech Solutions, Morgan Collins Yeast & Salyer, Churchill Downs, Kentucky Downs) were not returned.

William May, of Hurt Deckard & May, declined to comment on the contributions he and his colleagues made.

Jonathan Rabinowitz, a partner with the Morgan and Morgan law firm, declined an interview, but released a statement that said, “Governor Beshear is a longtime friend of myself and many people in our office, with some having known him since high school. We’re incredibly proud to support him.”

(Yet, of the 54 lawyers with Morgan & Morgan who contributed, 34 of them live outside Kentucky.)

The analysis came to the surprising conclusion that the biggest group of contributions came from persons associated with WB Transport of London and its cofounder London Mayor Randall Weddle, though Weddle himself did not contribute.

But there were many other big bundles. The bundling of contributions is a common practice in big campaigns and is legal so long as the donor is voluntarily donating his or her own money.

Below are two listings. First is a list of the largest bundles of contributions from particular groups — officials and employees of a business, along with their immediate relatives and close associates.

Second is a list of individuals who reports show gave the most to the Kentucky Democratic Party and Beshear campaign over the period examined.

Groups

Groups:

Swartz family, Clark and Bath counties: $203,000

Owners of Swartz Enterprises and Swartz Construction, mowing contractors for Transportation Cabinet

Mark Swartz, Winchester, Swartz Enterprises????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-22

Mark Swartz, Winchester, Swartz Enterprises????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Mark Swartz, Winchester, Swartz Enterprises????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21

Mark Swartz, Winchester, Swartz Enterprises????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Colleen Swartz, Winchester, UK Medical Center???????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-22

Colleen Swartz, Winchester, UK Medical Center???????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Colleen Swartz, Winchester, UK Medical center????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21

Colleen Swartz, Winchester, UK Medical Center???????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Mike Swartz, Olympia, Swartz Construction????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-22

Mike Swartz, Olympia, Swartz Construction????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Mike Swartz, Olympia, Swartz Construction????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21

Mike Swartz, Olympia, Swartz Construction????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Carson Swartz, Winchester, nurse??????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Emery Swartz, Winchester, retired?????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Peggy Swartz, Olympia, Gateway Health Dept???????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Caitlin Sadler, Sharpsburg, teacher?????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Caitlin Sadler, Sharpsburg, Ky Beef Council??????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21

James Sadler, Sharpsburg, Delta Gas customer rep??????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Kurt Wlihelmus, Nicholasville, student??????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Derek Fisher, Olympia, Swartz Construction, mechanic??? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Laveda Motley, Olympia, Swartz Construction???????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Laveda Motley, Olympia, homemaker???????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-22

Laveda Motley, Olympia, homemaker???????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Richard Motley, Salt Lick, retired?????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer, London???????????????????????????? $199,000

Law firm handles many personal injury and workers’ compensation cases

McKinnley Morgan, London???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 6-30-22

McKinnley Morgan, London???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-13-21

McKinnley Morgan, London???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 4-30-21

McKinnley Morgan, London???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 10-16-20

McKinnley Morgan, London???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 7-27-20

Jennifer Collins, Manchester?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-29-21

Jennifer Collins, Manchester?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 12-28-22

Jennifer Collins, Manchester?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 12-8-21

Jennifer Collins, Manchester?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 8-27-21

Jennifer Collins, Manchester?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 10-16-20

Dan Yeast, Nancy???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 12-28-22

Dan Yeast, Nancy???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-29-21

Dan Yeast, Nancy???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-21-21

Kyle Salyer, Staffordsville???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 12-28-22

Kyle Salyer, Staffordsville???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

Kyle Salyer, Staffordsville???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-29-21

Kyle Salyer, Staffordsville???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-21-21

Kyle Salyer, Staffordsville???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 10-29-20

Gerald Vanover Jr., London????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-29-21

Gerald Vanover Jr., London????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-21-21

Gerald Vanover Jr., London????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 10-16-20

Bruce Bentley, London????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 12-31-22

Bruce Bentley, London????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-29-21

Bruce Bentley, London????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $13,000 to KDP on 12-21-21

Kelly Bentley, London, homemaker????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-29-21

Wanda Morgan, London, retired?????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 3-22-22

Kentucky Downs, Simpson County?????????????????????????????????????? $195,500

Historical horse racing venue and horse race track

Ron Winchell, Las Vegas, Winchell Thoroughbreds??????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 3-28-22

Ron Winchell, Las Vegas, ECL Entertainment??????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 7-21-20

Ron Winchell, Las Vegas, ECL Entertainment??????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 11-20-19

Kristen Winchell, Las Vegas, ECL??????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-27-22

Kristen Winchell, Las Vegas, ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 10-29-20

Joan Winchell, Las Vegas,???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-19-22

Joan Winchell, Las Vegas, investor??????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 4-23-21

Marc Falcone, Las Vegas, ECL????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 3-29-22

Marc Falcone, Franklin, KY, business owner????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 8-11-20

Marc Falcone, Franklin, KY, business owner????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 11-20-19

Allan Creek, Las Vegas, Fenske Media???????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 3-30-22

Allan Creel, Las Vegas, ACHC LLC??????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 7-27-20

Allan Creel, Las Vegas, ACHC LLC??????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 11-20-19

Kristine Creel, Las Vegas, retired?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 3-30-22

Kristine Creel, Las Vegas ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 11-20-19

Jennifer Schacht, Las Vegas, Light Group??????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-29-22

Jennifer Schacht, Las Vegas???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 4-5-21

Jennifer Schacht, Las Vegas,??????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 10-31-20

Gilbert Macagno, Las Vegas, Carlton Group????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 4-23-21

Robert Browning, Las Vegas, ECL Development????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 3-29-22

David Fiske, Lexington, Winchell Thoroughbreds??????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 10-1-21

Hurt Deckard & May, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $183,000

Law firm and lobbying firm

William C. Hurt Jr., Lexington, ??????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

William C. Hurt Jr., Lexington????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-29-21

William C. Hurt Jr., Lexington????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-30-21

William C. Hurt Jr., Lexington????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 9-10-20

Susan Hurt, Lexington??????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-29-21

Susan Hurt, Lexington??????????????????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

Mandy Deckard, Lexington nurse????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

Mandy Deckard, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-29-21

Mandy Deckard, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21

William H. May III, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

William H. May III, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21

William H. May III, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-29-21

William H. May III, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 9-10-20

William H. May III, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $2,500 to KDP on 2-27-20

Denise May, Frankfort????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-29-21

Denise May, Frankfort????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 9-29-21

Matthew Malone, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

Matthew Malone, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-17-21

Matthew Malone, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $2,500 to KDP on 9-29-21

Matthew Malone, Lexington?????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 9-10-20

Emily Malone, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-17-21

Aaron Reedy????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

Aaron Reedy????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,500 to KDP on 9-29-21

Michael Kalinyak, Paris?????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-29-21

Sannie Overly, Paris???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-20-22

Sannie Overly, Paris???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 1-27-22

Sannie Overly, Paris???????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $7,500 to KDP on 9-29-21

HealthTech Solutions, Frankfort?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $159,250

Health information technology firm co-founded by former Cabinet for Health and Family Services official Frank Lassiter

Franklin Lassiter, Midway???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-15-22

Franklin Lassiter, Midway???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Franklin Lassiter, Midway???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 11-2-21

Franklin Lassiter, Midway???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 10-28-20

Mary Lassiter, Midway?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-15-22

Mary Lassiter, Midway?????????????????????????????????? ??????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Mary Lassiter, Midway?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 11-2-21

Mary Lassiter, Midway?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 10-28-20

Mary E. Niehaus, Falcon Heights, MN????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-28-22

Mary E. Niehaus, Falcon Heights, MN????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Mary E. Niehaus, Falcon Heights, MN????????????????????????????????????? $10,000 to KDP on 12-21-21

Thomas Niehaus, Falcon Heights, MN????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Ben Lassiter, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-21-21

George B. Lassiter, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 12-15-22

George B. Lassiter, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22

Sandeep Kapoor,???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-30-22

Gargi Kapoor,??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-30-22

Bettina Rice, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $250 to KDP on 10-8-21

Morgan & Morgan, Orlando Florida???????????????????????????????????? $156,050

National personal injury law firm that has big presence in Kentucky

Jonathan Rabinowitz, Versailles???????????????????????????????? $100 to Beshear campaign on 1-16-23

Jonathan Rabinowitz, Versailles???????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 1-16-23

Jonathan Rabinowitz, Versailles???????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 7-18-20

Jonathan Rabinowitz, Versailles???????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 2-10-22

Kathleen Rabinowitz, Versailles???????????????????????????????? $100 to Beshear campaign on 1-16-23

Kathleen Rabinowitz, Versailles ?????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 2-10-22

Michael Morgan, Orlando, FL????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 8-18-22

Michael Morgan, Orlando, FL????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Michael Morgan, Orlando, FL????????????????????????????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 7-18-20

Reuven Moskowitz, Lawrence, New York?????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 9-14-22

Reuven Moskowitz. Lawrence, New York?????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-14-22

Reuven Moskowitz, Lawrence, New York?????????????? $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Jason Miller, Jacksonville, FL??????????????????????????????????????? $5,000 to KDP on 8-26-22

Jason Miller, Jacksonville, FL??????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-26-22

Tanner Shultz, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Tanner Shultz, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Greg Stumbo, Prestonsburg??????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-20-22

Kelli Lester, Bowling Green????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Zachary Chesser, Lexington???????????????????????????????????????? $200 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Brenton Stanley, Louisville?????????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Kaleigh Yurkew, Louisville???????????????????????????????????????????? $150 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Joseph Rugg, Lexington???????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Alan Borowsky, Bala Cynwyd, PA?????????????????????????????? $150 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Scott Wallitsch, Louisville????????????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Danielle Blandford, Louisville????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-29-22

Dion Moorman, Owensboro?????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-28-22

Thomas Chumbley, Louisville????????????????????????????????????? $200 to Beshear campaign on 9-28-22

David Dufour, Louisville???????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-27-22

Lauren Marley, Bowling Green?????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-27-22

Sara Cowles, Bowling Green??????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-27-22

Austin Raboin, Belleville, IL?????????????????????????????????????????? $200 to Beshear campaign on 9-26-22

Michael Goetz, Tampa, FL???????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-23-22

Alexander Wolff, St. Louis, MO?????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-22-22

John Spies, Louisville?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? $250 to Beshear campaign on 8-19-22

Benjamin Adams, Charleston, WV???????????????????????????? $250 to Beshear campaign on 9-15-22

Carmen Clem, Orlando, FL??????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-15-22

Jonathan Sedgh, Great Neck, NY??????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-13-22

Jonathan Sedgh, Great Neck, NY??????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 8-23-22

Blake Nolan, Lexington????????????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Greg Vescoco, Richmond Heights, MO??????????????????? $250 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Robert Wilkins, Jackson, MS??????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Rene Rocha, New Orleans, LA???????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Clancy Boylan, Philadelphia, PA????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Bryce Spano, Tampa, FL???????????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Luke Mitcheson, Waltham, MA????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

James Moon, Naples, FL??????????????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Garrett Lee, Boston, MA?????????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-8-22

Scott Whitley, Tampa, FL?????????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-1-22

William Lewis, West Palm Beach, FL???????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-24-22

Blake Lange, Naples, FL????????????????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 8-22-22

Ben Wilson, Madison, MS???????????????????????????????????????????? $1,500 to Beshear campaign on 8-19-22

David Noble, Lexington???????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Jacob Sternberger, Philadelphia, PA???????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Tyler Kobylinski, Orlando, FL??????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Matt Morgan, Winter Park, FL???????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

James Young, Jacksonville, FL????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Christopher Mossallati, Fort Myers, FL??????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Adam Brum, Tampa, FL????????????????????????????????????????????????? $200 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Daniel Morgan, Winter Park, FL????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-12-22

Josh Autry, Lexington???????????????????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Mark Troy, Charleston, WV????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Sumeet Kaul, Tampa, FL???????????????????????????????????????????????? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Ryan Rudd, Orlando, FL????????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Richard Bates, Orlando, FL??????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Shea Conley, Lexington???????????????????????????????????????????????? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 8-18-22

Crosby Crane, Tampa, FL?????????????????????????????????????????????? $500 to Beshear campaign on 9-21-22

Churchill Downs, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $148,000

Race track that also operates historical horse racing venues

William Carstanjen, Prospect? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

William Carstanjen, Prospect? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $15,000 to KDP on 12-27-22

William Carstanjen, Prospect? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $15,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

William Carstanjen, Prospect? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $15,000 to KDP on 10-6-20

William Mudd, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

William Mudd, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $10,000 to KDP on 12-27-22

William Mudd, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $15,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

William Mudd, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $5,000 to KDP on 10-6-20

Brad Blackwell, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 1-13-23

Brad Blackwell, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $5,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Brad Blackwell, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,500 to KDP on 10-6-20

Austin Miller, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $5,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Austin Miller, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,500 to KDP on 10-12-20 92

Benjamin Murr, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Benjamin Murr, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,500 to KDP on 11-20-21

Benjamin Murr, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,500 to KDP on 10-7-20

Marcia Dall, Prospect ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Marcia Dall, Prospect ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $3,000 to KDP on 12-27-22

Marcia Dall, Prospect ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,500 to KDP on 10-6-20

Karole Lloyd, Atlanta, GA? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Karole Lloyd, Atlanta, GA? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

1. Rankin, Goshen ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22
2. Alex Rankin, Goshen? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $5,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Daniel Harrington, Gates Mills, OH? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Daniel Harrington, Gates Mills, OH? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Charles Kenyon, Shelbyville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,500 to KDP on 11-10-21

Charles Kenyon, Shelbyville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 10-6-20

Paul Varga, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Kevin Flanery, Simpsonville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,500 to KDP on 10-5-20

Betsy Janes, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Betsy Janes, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Shawn Bailey, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 10-6-20

Elizabeth Wester, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 10-12-20

Mike Anderson, Floyds Knobs, IN? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 1-13-23

Michael Anderson, Greenville, IN? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Maureen Adams, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Maureen Adams, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Michael Ziegler, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Michael Ziegler, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to KDP on 11-10-21

Michael Ziegler, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to KDP on 10-16-20

Mary Catherine Armstrong, Prospect? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Tonya Abeln, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to KDP on 11-10-21

Jason Sauer, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Jason Sauer, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Robert Fealy, Chicago, IL ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 1-13-23

Robert Fealy, Chicago, IL ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to KDP on 11-10-21

Melissa Whitehead, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to Beshear campaign on 12-30-22

Melissa Whitehead, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $250 to KDP on 11-10-21

Justin Paul, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

Timothy Bryant, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 1-12-23

Timothy Bryant, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to KDP on 11-10-21

Nathaniel Simon, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to KDP on 11-10-21

Ryan Jordan, Louisville ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $1,000 to Beshear campaign on 1-13-23

Amy Patterson, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to Beshear campaign on 1-26-23

Matthew Fontaine, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $500 to Beshear campaign on 1-26-23

Erik Furlan, Louisville? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? $250 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22

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Individuals:

Here is the list of the largest individual donors to the Kentucky Democratic Party (since Nov. 5, 2019) and Gov. Andy Beshear’s re-election campaign (since it began on Oct. 1, 2021.) This list has been updated to include contributions to the Kentucky Democratic Party in March and contributions to the Beshear campaign during the first quarter of 2023.

Brooke Barzun, Louisville, philanthropist – $62,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 3-13-23
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-27-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-10-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-4-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-25-20

Matthew Barzun, Louisville, self-employed, publisher – $62,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 3-13-23
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-27-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-10-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-4-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-25-20

Edward Britt Brockman, Louisville, ophthalmologist, John Kenyon Eye Center – $62,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 3-25-23
• $15,000 to KDP on 3-9-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-18-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 4-22-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-5-20

Christina Brown, Louisville, retired, – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 10-20-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-19-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-19-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 5-13-20

Laura Lee Brown, Louisville, artist – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-14-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-30-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 7-19-20

Gregory Bubalo, Louisville, attorney, Bubalo Law PLC – $57,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 1-26-23
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 7-12-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 3-1-22
• $10,000 to KDP on 5-18-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-12-20

William Carstanjen, Prospect, Churchill Downs, CEO – $47,000

• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-28-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 12-27-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-10-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 10-6-20

Clay Corman, Nicholasville, CMC Inc., owner – $62,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 2-22-23
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 4-20-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 4-15-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-3-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 10-16-20

John Dougherty, Louisville, Louisville Paving Co., CEO – $59,500

• $10,000 to KDP on 3-27-23
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 11-10-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 4-5-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 5-31-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-21-20
• $2,500 to KDP on 12-13-19

Michael F. Dudgeon Jr., Midway, Milam Farm LLC, partner – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-12-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-26-22
• $5,000 to KDP on 12-31-21
• $5,000 to KDP on 11-24-21
• $5,000 to KDP on 9-22-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-26-20

Jack Dulworth, Louisville, Dulworth Group, partner – $62,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 3-20-23
• $15,000 to KDP on 3-22-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 10-1-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 2-12-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-11-20

Jonathan Goldberg, Louisville, attorney, Goldberg & Simpson – $57,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 3-22-23
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-24-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 6-7-22
• $5,000 to KDP on 12-21-21
• $10,000 to KDP on 6-30-21
• $10,000 to KDP in 8-4-20

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William Hodgkin, Winchester, investor – $62,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 1-9-23
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 3-10-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 3-7-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 4-19-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

John Gill Holland Jr., Louisville, film producer – $47,000

• $15,00 to KDP on 3-22-23
• $5,000 to KDP on 1-26-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-6-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 10-30-21
• $10,000 to KDP on 12-14-20

Gary Johnson, Pikeville, attorney – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 2-2-23
• $15,000 to KDP 9-20-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-17-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-18-21

Franklin T. Lassiter, Midway, HealthTech Solutions, chief operating officer – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-15-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-2-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 10-28-20

Mary E. Lassiter, Midway, retired – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-15-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-2-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 10-28-20

McKinnley Morgan, London, Morgan Collins Yeast & Salyer, attorney – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 6-30-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-13-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 4-30-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 7-27-20

Charles O’Connor, Versailles, Ashford Stud, sales – $72,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 3-1-23
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-30-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 3-29-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 5-28-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 7-17-20
• $10,000 to KDP on 11-28-19

Frank Shoop, Lexington, retired car dealer – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 6-21-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 10-29-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 10-28-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-12-20

Colleen Swartz, Winchester, UK Medical Center, director – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Mark A. Swartz, Winchester, Schwartz Enterprises, contractor – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Mike Swartz, Olympia, Mike Swartz Construction, owner – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 6-28-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-29-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-28-20

Robert Vance, Maysville, retired banker – $57,000

• $10,000 on 3-27-23
• $5,000 to KDP on 12-5-22
• $10,000 to KDP on 3-16-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 10-27-21
• $5,000 to KDP on 9-8-21
• $10,000 to KDP on 4-12-21
• $5,000 to KDP on 9-8-20
• $10,000 to KDP on 7-22-20

Steve Wilson, Louisville, KY, 21C Museum Hotels, CEO – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 12-14-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 9-30-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 12-30-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 7-19-20

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William Yarmuth, Winter Park, FL, Egan E LLC Health Care – $52,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 10-21-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 12-8-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 12-8-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 7-31-20
• $5,000 to KDP on 12-2-19

Barbara S. Young, Lexington, homemaker – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 2-6-23
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-9-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 10-29-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-22-21

William T. Young Jr., Lexington. W.T. Young LLC – $47,000

• $15,000 to KDP on 2-6-23
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-9-22
• $2,000 to Beshear campaign on 10-29-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 9-22-21

Lee Zimmerman, Prospect, CEO of The Kidz Club – $57,100

• $2,100 to Beshear campaign on 3/29/23
• $15,000 to KDP on 3-4-22
• $15,000 t KDP on 4-23-21
• $10,000 to KDP on 8-19-20
• $15,000 to KDP on 11-26-19

Sherrill Zimmerman, Prospect, retired – $47,100

• $2,100 to Beshear campaign on 3-29-23
• $15,000 to KDP on 3-4-22
• $15,000 to KDP on 4-23-21
• $15,000 to KDP on 8-19-20

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The Kentucky Senate on Tuesday approved a bill ending one form of voter identification. (Getty Images)

For those who plan to make a choice in Kentucky’s upcoming primary election, be sure to register to vote by Monday, April 17.?

The primary election is Tuesday, May 16. The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 7.?

Registering can be completed online, via mail or by returning voter registration cards to your county clerk’s office. The latest voter registration totals show that more than 3.4 million Kentuckians are registered to vote.?

According to the state election calendar, online registrations must be completed by 4 p.m. local time, mailed registrations must be postmarked by April 17 to be counted and applications can be accepted by a county clerk’s office until the close of business on April 17.?

This year, ballots will include statewide offices in the executive branch: governor, attorney general, auditor, secretary of state, agriculture commissioner and treasurer. The deadline for voters to switch parties ahead of the primary election was Dec. 31, 2022.?

According to the Secretary of State’s Office, the qualifications for voters to register in in Kentucky are:

• Be a U.S. citizen and a Kentucky resident for at least 28 days before the election. Non-U.S. citizens and U.S. nationals do not qualify.
• Be at least 18 years old by the next general election.?
• Cannot be a convicted felon. For some with an expungement, executive pardon or executive order, the right to vote may be restored.?
• Cannot have been judged mentally incompetent in a court of law or have voting rights removed.
• Cannot claim the right to vote outside Kentucky.??

Kentuckians under the age of 17 can register and participate in a primary election if they will be 18 by the General Election.?

To complete a new or updated voter registration, request an absentee ballot or learn more information about voting in Kentucky, visit govote.ky.gov.?

The Kentucky Senate on Tuesday approved a bill ending one form of voter identification. (Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — A voting rights group wants Kentuckians to decide on a constitutional amendment that would automatically restore the vote to convicted felons who have completed their sentences — a change that a recent poll found has strong public support.

The League of Women Voters of Kentucky on Tuesday voiced support for Senate Bill 164, sponsored by Sen. Brandon Storm, R-London.

Introduced last week, the bill would let voters decide on a constitutional amendment restoring voting rights to persons convicted of felonies once they complete their sentences and restoring other civil rights three years after completion. The felonies could not have involved treason, election fraud or bribery in elections.?

Cindy Heine, the League’s legislative liaison, said the group thinks Storm’s bill would restore the vote to most of the 161,506 Kentuckians who are still permanently disenfranchised. The only paths to regaining the vote now are a pardon by the governor or expungement of a conviction, both burdensome processes.

Kentucky still has one of the nation’s highest rates of citizens barred from voting by a felony conviction, despite Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2019 order restoring rights to those convicted of a nonviolent felony, according to a League report?released Tuesday.?

It is “long past time for Kentuckians to be permitted to vote on a constitutional amendment to determine whether the permanent ban on voting should be lifted,” the nonpartisan group says.

The League commissioned a statewide Mason-Dixon poll last month that found 68% of Kentucky voters support automatic restoration of voting rights after completing a sentence, while 24% oppose it.

It’s about “dignity, humanity”

The League also supports? House Bill 97, introduced by Rep. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville. Herron’s proposed amendment is similar to Storm’s except it would restore civil rights after five years.?

As the League released the latest in its series of voting rights reports, Herron underscored the importance of the right to vote.

“I believe that having voting rights restored — it’s about dignity, it’s about humanity and it’s about letting people know that we see you and we want to hear you,” the representative said.?

Alaina Sweasy, who was granted a partial pardon by Gov. Matt Bevin, said when she went to the polls to vote, she was asked for paperwork in addition to her ID by a poll worker. She felt ashamed after the interaction. Currently, Sweasy is a social worker and lobbyist.?

“I’m more than the worst thing that I’ve ever done,” Sweasy said. “It should not be this hard to participate in the democratic process. And we will not stop until we are whole human beings.”

Marcus Jackson said he was not covered under Gov. Andy Beshear’s 2019 executive order restoring voting rights to more than 140,000 Kentuckians with non-violent felony convictions because of a 1992 conviction for a crime that he said he did not commit. Since then, he has gone on to work with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and advocates for restoring voting rights.?

He added that he was inspired by the work of other advocates. To those who are serving their sentences, he said: “There are people still willing to give you a chance. You are more than that mistake that you made.”

Kentucky out of step with other states

Kentucky is one of three states that permanently bars anyone with a felony conviction from voting. The other states are Iowa and Virginia. The national trend is to restore voting rights automatically, especially for those who have completed their sentences, according to the League report.

The League has released reports on voting rights of convicted felons in the commonwealth since 2006.?

Some bills have been introduced in the General Assembly to work toward restoring voting rights since 2020. During the last legislative session, three bills that would have put a constitutional amendment on the ballot did not receive a hearing, the League said.?

Kentucky’s 1891 Constitution permanently bans citizens from voting if convicted of a felon. The League report says that the only way to currently restore voting rights is by an executive pardon or expungement, which can be difficult and expensive.?

On his third day in office, Beshear issued an executive order restoring voting rights to more than 140,000 Kentuckians who completed sentences for nonviolent offenses.?

“The civil rights of thousands of Kentuckians are still left outside the scope of these requirements and remain unaffected by the new policy,” the League’s report said.?

“Studies show that restoring voting rights reduces rates of recidivism, or re-offending, meaning that our communities are safer with restoration of rights,” the report adds.

?“In addition, the costs of re-offending (arrests, courts, prison) are avoided. Studies also demonstrate expungement leads to increased employment and income. Supports for reintegrating into society, by restoring voting rights and expungement of records, are important factors for Kentucky’s future.”

Here’s what the League recommends:?

• Place a constitutional amendment on the ballot allowing Kentuckians to decide whether voting rights should be automatically restored.
• Create a coordinated government effort that fully implements Executive Order 2019-003 restoring the right to vote, including a robust public education campaign to inform, promote, assist and provide resources in the restoration process.
• Release figures annually on the number of voting rights applications filed and the number approved.
• Provide statements of the reasons for the governor’s decisions on individual applications for reinstatement of voting rights.
• Eliminate the $50 filing fee and the $250 application fee for felony expungement.

The full report can be found online.?

From left to right: Luis Marquez, Manuel Castro and Guillermina Fuentes after Fuentes was released from jail. (Photo by Luis Marquez)

This story was produced in partnership with?Type Investigations, with support from the Fund for Constitutional Government.?

SAN LUIS, ARIZ. – The small city of San Luis is tucked away in the far corner of Arizona, closer to Mexico than to any major U.S. city. The community is nearly 95% Latino and tight-knit — the type of place where you know your neighbors and their parents and cousins.

It’s not uncommon here for residents to frequently cross the border into Mexico to go shopping or see a dentist, as the vast majority of residents are U.S. citizens who can go back and forth freely. And they do not take their right to vote in the U.S. for granted. Election Days in San Luis were typically joyous occasions, with music and celebrations in the streets.

Luis Marquez, the president of the local school district and a community leader in San Luis, said they felt “like a state fair.”

“Everybody would get involved, people would have their carne asada and music and it was just something very active,” he said.

But election celebrations have stopped here in recent years. A 2016?law?pushed by state Republicans made it a felony punishable by prison time to collect a voter’s ballot unless the collector is their? relative, household member, or caregiver. Since then, the excitement and joy surrounding voting have been replaced with fear. “Now, it’s been really quiet,” Marquez said. “There’s no action.”

In some states, there’s no prohibition on collecting ballots from other community members, a common occurrence in places where residents have limited access to polls. But Arizona is one of more than?30 states?that restrict or ban the practice.

The law was signed in 2016 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 after it was challenged in the lower courts. Since then, the Arizona attorney general’s office has prosecuted four community members, including the city’s former mayor, Guillermina Fuentes, who was jailed for 30 days, for alleged unlawful ballot collection.

Allies of former President Donald Trump say these arrests are indicative of the type of voter fraud that cost him the 2020 election. But democracy advocates say prosecuting these cases suppresses the right to vote.

“This is what opponents of the ballot collection law always feared – the arbitrary enforcement of the law against people of color, women of color, without any kind of evidence of any type of fraud or intent to do wrongdoing,” said Darrell Hill, policy director for the ACLU of Arizona. “These are people who are just helping their neighbors, helping their community, and are now facing serious charges.”

On Oct. 13, Fuentes, a 66-year-old grandmother, former farmworker, school board member, and local Democratic leader, was sentenced to one month in jail and two years of probation for collecting four completed mail ballots that belonged to community members during the August 2020 primary. Fuentes and her neighbor, Alma Juarez, were the first people prosecuted under the state’s ballot collection law.

Her prosecution by the office of former Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who was running for U.S. Senate throughout much of the legal proceeding, became fodder for conspiracy theorists and the right-wing elections group True The Vote, which publicized the case nationally.

In an interview after she was released from jail, Fuentes described the initial shock of her indictment. At the time of her offense, Brnovich’s office had petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a case focused on the law, and there were legal questions about whether it was constitutional.

“When I was about to go to jail, I was so sad and frustrated, and I couldn’t believe that I was going, because I see it like a witch hunt,” she said. Brnovich, who is no longer in office, could not be reached for comment and Todd Lawson, the prosecutor with the attorney general’s office who worked on the case, did not respond to a request for comment.

On Oct. 19, Brnovich announced?two more indictments?against women in the Democratic-leaning town within a county that voted for Trump by 6 points in 2020. The attorney general’s office alleges that the women collected eight ballots between them.

Fuentes’ daughter, Lizette Esparza, said she wakes up each morning in fear of how conspiracy theorists will talk about her family on social media.

“We’re living in a nightmare right now,” said Esparza, who serves as the superintendent of the local elementary school district. She also worries about how her mom’s ordeal will affect the community. “They’re not going to want to go to vote, especially now because now they’re scared.”

Casting ballots in San Luis

Like a town square, the San Luis post office is a major hub of this border community. During business hours, cars steadily stream through the parking lot as residents, on their way to or from work or school pick-up, run inside to check their P.O. boxes.

San Luis doesn’t have home mail delivery. The city spans roughly 34 square miles, and it’s not uncommon for people to pick up mail for friends and neighbors, who may share P.O. boxes. The community is poor, with an average per capita income of just over $15,000. Many residents don’t have their own vehicles and there’s very limited public transportation.

Casting a ballot in-person can be difficult for people in San Luis. Like Fuentes, who dropped out of high school after 10th grade to join her parents and siblings planting and harvesting lettuce crops in Arizona and California, many San Luis residents are farmworkers who speak little English and spend long hours in the fields.

“They leave at 5 in the morning and come back at 7 or 8 at night,” Esparza explained. “When in the day are they going to have to go and vote?”

Arizona has permitted no-excuse voting by mail for more than 30 years. And before the ballot collection law was passed, it was not uncommon for residents of San Luis to rely on friends, neighbors, or volunteers to help bring their ballots to the post office or to help return them to a voting center or dropbox.

San Luis residents interviewed explained that they consider many in the community who are not blood relatives, like neighbors and close friends, their family. Limiting ballot collection to just family members, household members, and caregivers doesn’t make sense, they said.

“People who enacted this law are people who don’t want people in San Luis and Native communities to vote,” said Anne Chapman, Fuentes’ attorney. “That’s what this is about.”

GOP restrictions on voting

The Republican Party’s effort to restrict certain groups of people from voting has taken many forms over the last decade since the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act.

One of them is placing limits on ballot collection, or as Republican lawmakers pejoratively call it, “ballot harvesting.” Republican officials justify the laws by claiming that an individual or organization could pressure a voter to vote in a certain way if they return a ballot on their behalf.

“The intent behind the bill is to make sure that we have integrity in our electoral process, that there is a chain of custody when it comes to mail-in ballots,”?said?then-state Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, who sponsored Arizona’s law when she was a state representative. Ballot collection, she said, “is ripe for a lot of things to go wrong.”

Arizona’s law, passed by the legislature in 2016, faced a lengthy legal challenge. Democratic groups sued, and in 2018, a federal district court sided with Arizona after a trial. But Democrats appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which struck the law down, finding that it violates the Voting Rights Act by discriminating against minority voters.

Republican lawmakers, the court found, passed it with the intention of suppressing the votes of Native American, Hispanic and Black voters, who often face issues with mail service and access to transportation and who are more likely to rely on the assistance of third parties to return their ballots.

Brnovich appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the law in a 6-3 ruling in July 2021 that?had major implications for voting rights across the country. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan lamented how the majority opinion further weakens the Voting Rights Act.

“What is tragic here is that the Court has (yet again) rewritten — in order to weaken — a statute that stands as a monument to America’s greatness, and protects against its basest impulses,” she wrote. “What is tragic is that the Court has damaged a statute designed to bring about ‘the end of discrimination in voting.’”

On Aug. 4, 2020, the day of Arizona’s primary election, the law was still relatively new and was still being litigated in the courts. Fuentes was stationed outside a local cultural center to support city council candidates and hand out campaign literature. At one point during the day, Fuentes’ neighbor, Juarez, approached her and handed her a ballot.

What Fuentes didn’t realize was that Gary Snyder, a local Republican, was recording cell phone video outside the polling place. In the 2020 primary, Snyder was running for city council as a write-in candidate and in 2022 he would run for state Senate. Both attempts were unsuccessful.

He shared the footage with David Lara, another local Republican who had unsuccessfully run for office numerous times in San Luis. In an interview, Lara and Snyder said the footage showed the type of voter fraud that has swung elections in San Luis for decades.

“If there would have been 10 Gary Snyders with cameras, we would have caught many people doing the same thing all throughout the day,” Lara said.

“Out of 10 elections in San Luis, eight or nine have been won because of fraud,” he added.

In the video recorded by Snyder, Fuentes appears to write something on the ballot and then hands Juarez a stack of ballots to bring into the polling place. The interaction was the type of voter assistance Fuentes had provided for countless other community members. Yuma County officials later verified that the voters signed their own ballot envelopes, and the ballots were counted.

The Yuma County Sheriff’s Office and the state attorney general’s office eventually learned of the footage, and Brnovich’s Election Integrity Unit launched an investigation. People in San Luis reported that uniformed sheriff’s deputies knocked on their doors early in the morning to ask about their voting history, which alarmed many residents, according to a brief filed by Arizona voting rights groups in the Supreme Court case.

Prosecutors charged Fuentes with conspiracy, forgery, and two counts of ballot abuse. In court documents, the state said Fuentes “appears to have been caught on video running a modern-day political machine seeking to influence the outcome of the municipal election in San Luis, collecting votes through illegal methods, and then using another person to bring the ballots the last few yards into the ballot box.” She pleaded guilty to one count of ballot abuse, a felony, and the state dropped the more serious charges.

Lara and Snyder said that Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips, the leaders of True the Vote — a far-right group that has promoted conspiracy theories about voter fraud — reached out to them. The claims of ballot harvesting in San Luis became a crucial component of “2000 Mules,” a documentary directed by right-wing filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza in May 2022 which falsely claimed that voter fraud, specifically a significant amount of ballot harvesting by so-called “ballot mules,” swung the results of the 2020 election.

“They’re the ones that actually helped us to make this problem national,” Lara said in an interview.

But many in San Luis said they don’t trust Lara and Snyder, whom they described as disgruntled former candidates for office who are trying to discredit Democrats. Yuma County Supervisor Lynne Pancrazi said she is upset by the national reputation they’ve attached to San Luis. They “are giving such a bad name to this community,” she said.

Fuentes jailed, held in isolation

Across San Luis in mid-October, people who know Fuentes appeared shocked that their friend and former mayor was two dozen miles away in Yuma, Arizona, jailed and held in isolation for a month either because of her age and health or her position as a public figure. Chapman said the jail has given different explanations for why she was held in a cell alone.

Soaking in the October sun outside the San Luis library, Pancrazi, who served as a character witness at a hearing prior to Fuentes’ sentencing, described Fuentes’ quiet but caring demeanor.

“She’s not a criminal,” Pancrazi said. “She’s someone who was helping her community just like she’s done her entire life.”

Manuel Castro, a pastor at the Gethsemane Baptist Church in San Luis, agreed. “It’s too much punishment for people doing a little mistake,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s a little mistake.”

The harsh sentence will also help conservatives “further the narrative that there is actual fraud in our elections, which there was no evidence of here,” said Andy Gaona, a Phoenix-based election lawyer who represented Fuentes in a special action petition with a state appeals court.

San Luis residents also lamented the inequities in voter fraud prosecution. Brnovich’s office requested a year in prison for Fuentes, and while the judge only sentenced her to a month in jail plus two years’ probation, even that is inconsistent with the sentences others have received for similar crimes.

Chapman commissioned a report from Rich Robertson, a legal investigator and former journalist, to put the state’s recommended sentence into perspective.

Robertson’s report detailed 79 prosecutions for voting crimes in Arizona between 2005 and August 2022. In general, he found that, other than Fuentes, people without a prior criminal history or who are not already imprisoned do not receive jail or prison time for voting crimes.

“Nobody goes to jail or prison for this stuff, unless they’ve already had some kind of priors,” Robertson said. He found two exceptions: One person who received a suspended sentence, and another was also convicted of influencing a witness and not just a voting crime.

In one notable example included in Robertson’s report, Brnovich’s office requested a lighter sentence for Tracey Kay McKee, a?64-year-old Republican white woman?in the more affluent city of Scottsdale, Arizona, who pleaded guilty to casting a ballot in her dead mother’s name. She was?sentenced in April?to two years of probation and no jail time.

Juarez, who carried the voted ballots into the polling place, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to one year of probation and no jail time.

Robertson said he believes there were “a lot of political aspects” to this prosecution and that Fuentes was given a harsher sentence because of the national attention and her prominence as a target in the far-right “Stop the Steal” campaign.

“There was a lot of political pressure being exerted all over the place to make an example out of this particular defendant,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for the national spotlight being on Yuma County and Ms. Fuentes, I don’t think this outcome would have been the same.”

Norm Eisen, a longtime election lawyer who advised the Obama White House on ethics and government reform, called Fuentes’ sentence an “outrageous miscarriage of justice.”

“The relatively narrow conduct that formed the basis of the sentencing should not result in jail time and indeed in the vast majority of the United States, would not do so,” he said.

He called Brnovich’s sentencing request “a tragic and a cruel posture,” especially in “a smaller community where this kind of a sentencing has a chilling effect, even on legal behavior.”

At a hearing in October, Fuentes’ attorneys presented a number of character witnesses who spoke about her childhood, her work growing a business, and her position as a leader in the community. But at Fuentes’ sentencing hearing, Yuma County Superior Court Judge Roger Nelson said he does not believe she accepted responsibility for her crime and that her role as a community leader, although admirable, actually works against her.

“Many of the things that were put forward as mitigating factors, I think they’re also aggravating factors,”?he said. “You have been a leader in the San Luis community for a long time. People look up to you, people respect you, and they look to what you do.”

Life after jail

Fuentes was released from jail in November and is now back in the community on probation, coming to terms with having lost her voting rights for the next two years because of her felony conviction. She said she already knows of San Luis residents who have stopped voting after seeing what she went through.

“I say don’t be afraid,” she said, explaining what she tells her friends and neighbors in San Luis. “And they say, because you weren’t afraid, you were in jail, Guilla.”

Fuentes said that the San Luis community stood behind her throughout the legal process, showing up to support her and her family when she was at her lowest. The day she was released from jail, her family and friends gathered at her mom’s house. She walked in and saw the large crowd holding signs and two big pots of menudo, a traditional Mexican soup, that she had requested as her first meal back.

It was just what she needed — to be around friends and a home cooked meal after spending a month in isolation. “I lost 10 pounds in jail and I gained them back the day I left,” she said.

When Brnovich?announced indictments?of two more women — San Luis City Council Member Gloria Torres and Nadia Lizarraga-Mayorquin — in October for allegedly collecting other people’s ballots, Marquez said he feared that more people would face jail time. A representative for Kris Mayes, Arizona’s newly elected Democratic attorney general, said the office is still undecided on how it will handle their prosecutions, but Mayes has said she?will transition?the office’s Election Integrity Unit from prosecuting voter fraud to protecting voting rights.

Democrats in the Arizona House?introduced a bill?this session to repeal the ballot collection ban, but it’s unlikely to move forward given the Republican majority.

“It’s starting again for other people,” Castro said. “It never ends. It’s never finished. It’s so hard for the community, really. It’s so hard.”

Protestors outside the U.S. Supreme Court as oral arguments were heard in a pivotal North Carolina case dealing with election law on Wednesday. (Photo by Kira Lerner for States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — North Carolina Republicans appeared to have at least three of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices on their side Wednesday in a case that could determine the future of elections nationwide, and leave decisions about federal elections in the hands of state legislatures and beyond the reach of state courts.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in an appeal of a North Carolina Supreme Court ruling that threw out congressional districts drawn by the Republican-led legislature. The state’s high court decided in February that the redistricting plans constituted a partisan gerrymander that violated the state constitution.

North Carolina Republicans base their case on something called the “independent state legislature theory,” which holds that the U.S. Constitution’s Elections Clause makes legislatures the sole authority over federal elections.

“It is federal law alone that places substantive restrictions on state legislatures performing the task assigned them by the federal constitution,” said David H. Thompson, the lawyer representing the GOP legislators, during Wednesday’s arguments.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Samuel Alito seemed to agree with Thompson, indicating their belief that the federal Constitution is enough to protect voters and state constitutions shouldn’t play a role in election matters.

The oral arguments lasted almost three hours, twice as long as the court had scheduled, with multiple justices seeking clarifications on how Supreme Court precedent impacts this case and how the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted.

“Blast radius” of a ruling for GOP lawmakers highlighted?

Three attorneys — former Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, former Solicitor General Donald Verrilli, and current Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar — argued on behalf of the respondent voters, voting rights groups, and the U.S. Department of Justice, who oppose the North Carolina Republicans’ theory.

The opponents, who brought the original gerrymandering lawsuits, say the North Carolina Republicans’ argument relies on a misinterpretation of the Constitution that ignores historical fact.

The court’s three liberal justices seemed to agree with the opponents. An endorsement of the North Carolina Republicans’ position would have far-reaching effects, said Justice Elena Kagan.

“This is a theory with big consequences,” she said. “It would say that if the legislature engages in the most extreme forms of gerrymandering, there is no state constitutional remedy for that, even if the courts think that that’s a violation of the Constitution. It would say that legislatures could enact all manner of restrictions on voting, get rid of all kinds of voter protections that the state Constitution in fact prohibits. It might allow the legislatures to insert themselves, to give themselves a role in the certification of elections and the way election results are calculated.”

She added that the North Carolina Republicans’ proposal “gets rid of the normal checks and balances on the way big governmental decisions are made in this country.”

Katyal, who represented the parties who originally sued over the redistricting plans, warned of the “blast radius” of a ruling in favor of North Carolina GOP legislators in which state lawmaking is unconstrained by a state constitution.

Outside the court on Wednesday, Katyal said that “the checks and balances laced into the Constitution forbid what these challengers are seeking.”

Allison Riggs, co-executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, told reporters outside the court that the North Carolina legislators’ position during the oral arguments was extreme compared to what they argued in their earlier briefings.

“What I take away from today’s argument is that legislative leadership in North Carolina still wants the North Carolina constitution to be a meaningless piece of paper,” she said.

Conservative attorneys voice concerns

Opponents of the independent state legislature theory have also gained support from conservative lawyers who disagree with it.

“I do not believe there is any support whatsoever in the constitutional text or in the history of the framing of the Constitution that would support the most aggressive version of the independent state legislature theory that the petitioners are arguing for,” J. Michael Luttig, a Reagan administration lawyer and former U.S. Appeals Court judge, said in a webinar Tuesday. Luttig is working with Common Cause, the League of Conservation Voters, and a group of voters backed by the National Redistricting Foundation to oppose the North Carolina Republicans’ arguments.

Though the immediate case at issue before the Supreme Court is about redistricting, North Carolina Republicans have clashed with Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein and the state Board of Elections over other issues that could be implicated by the court’s ruling, such as the deadline for accepting mail-in ballots.

A ruling for North Carolina Republicans would create a confusing, two-tiered election system, with different rules for federal and state elections, national associations representing cities, counties, and mayors argued in a friend of the court brief.

Other recent rulings, including a 2019 Supreme Court case from North Carolina, Rucho v. Common Cause, seemed to indicate acceptance of the notion that entities other than legislatures have a lawful role in creating election districts. In Rucho, the majority said it would not consider cases about partisan gerrymandering, calling those political questions “beyond the reach of the federal courts.” But the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, also noted that state laws, state constitutions, and independent commissions could offer remedies to partisan gerrymandering.

In his live blog of the oral arguments, voting rights expert Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the divided Supreme Court appears to be “searching for a middle ground to hold that in really egregious cases state courts can violate the federal constitution when they apply state constitutions (or potentially to interpret state statutes) to limit a state legislature in regulating federal elections.”

Specifically, he said that the three justices who appear to be undecided on this case — Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh –— seem to be looking for a middle ground.

He said he doesn’t believe the court is ready to rule in line with the North Carolina Republicans’ view on the independent state legislative theory, but a partial ruling would still be problematic in allowing the federal government to inject itself into state election disputes.

Voting rights advocates and opponents of the independent state legislature theory remain fearful of what a ruling for North Carolina’s legislators, or even a partial one, could mean for the future of elections.

During a voting rights conference on Tuesday, Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg said that a ruling for North Carolina Republicans would “not be good for certainty in elections at a time when the system is under assault.”