Tuesday, April 22

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SCOTUS likely to be asked to discount ballots that arrive after election day

• The U.S. Supreme Court looks set to be asked to rule on a far-reaching GOP bid to ban states from accepting ballots that arrive after election day, potentially disenfranchising a large number of voters across multiple states.
  
  
• A federal judge wrote in an order in a Republican lawsuit challenging Mississippi's ballot receipt deadline law that the case will be paused until the Supreme Court weighs in on the issue.

A win for voting rights in North Carolina

• North Carolina agreed to permanently stop rejecting same-day registration ballots based on just one undelivered address verification notice. Under the new agreement—reached by the state, the DNC, and pro-voting advocates—voters must now be notified and given a chance to correct any address verification issues.
  
  
• The court still has to sign off on the agreement, but this change will protect thousands of voters from being disenfranchised and ensures a fairer process going forward. The restriction had been blocked by a court in January 2024, so it wasn’t in place for last year’s election.

DOJ drops another redistricting case 

• Before former President Joe Biden left office, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit challenging the at-large election system for city council in Hazleton, Penn. The DOJ, now part of the Trump administration, filed its notice of dismissal yesterday. This is the third redistricting case dropped by the DOJ under President Donald Trump.

Indiana sues over citizenship data for voter verification

• Indiana filed a lawsuit challenging the federal government's refusal to provide access to citizenship status data for voter verification. The state is seeking either direct access to the Person Centric Query System (PCQS) or an order compelling federal officials to verify the citizenship of nearly 600,000 registered voters.
  
  
• This mirrors four similar lawsuits filed by other states. These efforts are part of a broader, ongoing push by Republican-led states to tighten voter registration requirements, often citing unfounded concerns about non-citizen voting.
  
  
• Indiana’s lawsuit is the first of its kind filed under the Trump administration. In a press release, Secretary of State Diego Morales (R) cited Trump’s recent executive order on voting, and expressed hope that the new administration will be more receptive to these requests.

Lawsuit targets new Arkansas laws that undermine ballot initiatives

• The League of Women Voters of Arkansas filed a lawsuit challenging four new state laws that aim to hinder the ballot initiative process. The group alleged the laws violate the first and 14th amendments.