Friday, July 19

Georgia election board gets sued and accused of holding illegal meeting

• American Oversight — a nonprofit group fighting for truth, accountability, and democracy — sued the Georgia State Election Board, alleging the board held an illegal meeting without public notice in order to adopt new, controversial election rules.

  
  

• The plaintiffs asked the court to declare the new election rules invalid, block the state election board from implementing them and fine the members who held the meeting for violating the law.

Republicans challenge New York mail-in voting law in court

• New York Republicans are in court challenging the state’s new mail-in voting law. For the law to survive, the state's highest court must uphold a new reading of the state constitution, former CUNY professor Deborah Franzblau argues in a new piece.

  
  

• Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed the New York Early Mail Voter Act into law in September 2023, which allowed all New York voters to vote by mail.

Election official for tribal nation seeks to intervene in Arizona voting case

• The Hopi Tribe's voter registrar and other pro-voter groups moved to defend Arizona's policies protecting voters from intimidation and election certification delays. A right-wing lawsuit seeks to block enforcement of these rules.

Utah voters file lawsuit claiming their ballots were unfairly rejected

• Utah voters filed a lawsuit alleging their mail-in ballots were unfairly rejected in the state's GOP primary. Plaintiffs claim that they returned their ballots on time, but the USPS postmarked them after Election Day, so the votes were not counted.

New Defending Democracy podcast episode out now

• The U.S. Supreme Court had one of its most controversial terms in history. In a new episode of Defending Democracy, Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) joins Marc to discuss the influence of dark money on the Court and the dire need for judicial reform.

  
  

• “Obviously the Supreme Court has to be under an ethics code, and it has to be enforceable,” Whitehouse said. Watch it on YouTube now and listen wherever you get your podcasts.