Tuesday, April 29

Federal election chair opposes “late” mail ballots

• Amid the Republican Party’s broad effort to hamstring voting by mail, the chair of an independent bipartisan federal election commission said states shouldn’t allow ballots received after Election Day.
  
  
• “There should be a deadline for absentee or mail ballots prior to Election Day and then they should be returned by Election Day,” Donald Palmer, the current chair of the Election Assistance Commission, said in a House hearing Tuesday on California’s ballot counting process.

Trump’s first 100 days: ‘an all-out assault on democracy'

• Just 100 days into his second term, President Donald Trump has launched near-daily efforts to expand his power and has threatened fundamental principles like due process and the separation of powers. One political scientist Democracy Docket spoke with called it “an all-out assault on democracy.”
  
  
• Trump has sought to rapidly alter the country largely by decree. He’s signed on average almost one-and-a-half executive orders or memorandums each day since his inauguration, using them in his efforts to rewrite the plain language of the Constitution, to assault civil society and target free and fair elections.

States want to impose measures similar to SAVE Act 

• The SAVE Act faces an uphill battle in the Senate after passing the House. But there's another concern: 24 states already introduced legislation on documentary proof of citizenship.

Settlement approved to end North Carolina suppression law

• In a win for voters, North Carolina settled with voting rights groups and the DNC to permanently block part of SB 747. The law required officials to reject some voters' ballots due to address verification issues and offered no remedy to fix the problem. Marc and Paige Moskowitz explain.