Thursday, July 18

9th Circuit delivers victory for Arizona voters

• The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept provisions of two Arizona voter suppression laws that impose strict proof of citizenship and residency requirements blocked.

  
  

• Three Trump-appointed judges largely denied a request from the Republican National Committee (RNC) and GOP lawmakers to reinstate parts of the laws. Following today’s order, litigation will continue in the 9th Circuit.

Mississippi voters receive a win on the redistricting front

• In an order today, a federal district court instructed Mississippi's GOP-controlled legislature to enact new state legislative maps that comply with the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and set dates for special elections to be held before the end of the 2025 legislative session.

  
  

• A couple of weeks ago, the court struck down the state’s Republican-drawn legislative districts for violating the VRA by discriminating against Black voters. Learn more about the case here.

Voters with felony convictions are being disenfranchised in Mississippi and Nebraska

• The 5th Circuit upheld Mississippi's Jim Crow-era lifetime ban on voting for people convicted of certain felonies, overturning a decision that struck down the policy for being a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment.

  
  

• Nebraska's GOP attorney general said a new state law allowing people with felony convictions to register to vote immediately post-sentence is unconstitutional. State election officials have been directed to not register these individuals as voters.

In loss for voters, judge tosses out Colorado voter intimidation case

• A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit alleging that right-wing group U.S. Election Integrity Plan (USEIP) illegally intimidated voters in Colorado when they went door-to-door interrogating people about their voter status in the aftermath of the 2020 election.

  
  

• The judge said the pro-voting groups that brought the lawsuit didn’t provide sufficient evidence that USEIP intimidated voters.

Exposing SCOTUS’ agenda to embolden corruption and abuse of power

• Time and time again, the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority has done as much as possible to empower corruption by the wealthy and powerful while doing little to protect the American people, Alliance for Justice co-president Keith Thirion argued in a new piece.

• One example of this is “the outrageous presidential immunity decision in Trump v. United States, which invited presidents to be authoritarians,” Thirion said.

Deep dive into Trump campaign’s voting lawsuits

• Yesterday, a federal court rejected a lawsuit from the Trump campaign and the RNC to throw out certain mail-in ballots.

  
  

• And on the first day of the Republican National Convention, the Trump campaign and the RNC filed a lawsuit in Michigan to shut down voter registration sites in Veteran Affairs and Small Business Administration offices.

  
  

• In a new YouTube video, Marc and Democracy Docket’s Paige Moskowitz discuss these lawsuits and the GOP’s continued attempts to suppress voters in court.