Bad News Weekly: August 1, 2025

Welcome to Bad News Weekly, your rundown of key attacks on voting rights and independent elections across the country – it’s a way to keep up with what the opponents of democracy are up to. We’ll highlight some of the worst anti-voter efforts, with a spotlight on the South, the original frontline in the fight for voting rights, and still its fiercest.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“President Donald Trump’s allies have taken his blueprint to undermine free and fair elections – and run with it.” – Voting Rights Lab in their mid-year report on the restrictive voting law trends in 2025.

NOTABLE TRENDS

• Restrictive Voting Laws Made Up Greatest Share of Enacted Bills Since 2021, Affecting Almost 60 Million Voters: In their mid-year report, the Voting Rights Lab (VRL) found that restrictive voting bills made up the greatest proportion of legislation enacted since VRL began tracking voting legislation in 2021. In comparison to the first half of 2024, VRL saw fewer laws improving voting access enacted while the number of restrictive voting laws increased by 50%. The VRL also noted that several significant trends in restrictive bills, including proof of citizenship requirements and eliminating mail ballot receipt grace periods, were key parts of President Trump’s executive order on elections. 

• 8th Circuit Court Dealt Another Blow to the VRA: The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Section 208 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA), which protects the rights of disabled voters or voters who are unable to read or write to receive assistance at the polls, does not include a private right of action. This decision means that in the 7 states under the 8th Circuit, AR, IA, MN, MO, NE, ND, and SD, voters and voting rights groups can not file lawsuits to enforce Section 208 themselves, only the US DOJ is allowed to. 

• Despite Grand Claims, New Report Shows Noncitizen Voting Hasn’t Materialized: After years of false claims from Trump and allies about noncitizen voters corrupting elections, a new report from the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) shows the data doesn’t back them up. Across dozens of states, researchers found no coordinated attempts by noncitizens to vote and extremely low incident rates – such as 0.00028% in Michigan. In Texas and Alabama, state-led purges of alleged noncitizen voters were quietly rolled back after it turned out many were U.S. citizens. The myth, as CEIR notes, persists because it’s politically useful.

• GOP Lays Groundwork for New Federal Voter Suppression Tactics: Across Congress, the courts, and state governments, Republicans are laying the groundwork to weaken the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) – a landmark law that protects voters from being wrongly purged from the rolls. The goal: make it easier to remove voters, and harder to stop unlawful purges.

  • Congressional Pressure: GOP members of the House Administration Committee – led by Rep. Bryan Steil – held a hearing promoting roll purges and weakening NVRA safeguards, including the 90-day pre-election purge blackout period.

  • Georgia: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger urged Congress to eliminate federal limits on voter roll purges. He’s now leading a purge of nearly 500,000 voters  –  the list is disproportionately Black according to new research from Fair Fight.

  • DOJ Shift: Trump’s DOJ, under Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon, is now targeting states that fail to conduct aggressive list maintenance – a reversal from past DOJ priorities.

  • Full Repeal Efforts: Some GOP members introduced a bill to repeal the NVRA entirely, echoing calls from anti-voter activists like J. Christian Adams and RITE’s Justin Riemer.

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STATE ACTIVITY

• North Carolina • Voters Alarmed by Sweeping New Elections Bill: A sweeping elections bill moving through the North Carolina House would require voters to provide their full Social Security number when registering — a move that advocates warn could put personal data at risk. The bill is supported by the NC Election Integrity Team, the state arm of the far-right Election Integrity Network led by Cleta Mitchell, who also helped draft the SAVE Act. Other provisions stem from GOP Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin’s failed lawsuit attempting to overturn his 2024 loss for state Supreme Court. The bill would also require new ID rules for overseas and military voters, ban ranked choice voting, and bring new signature-matching scrutiny to mail ballots.

  Texas • Republicans Propose Gerrymander That Could Add 5 GOP Seats: Texas Republicans released a new congressional map that would drastically reshape competitive districts – potentially adding 5 new GOP-held seats in a move reportedly requested by the Trump White House. The map targets majority-Black and Latino districts, displaces multiple Democratic incumbents, and has drawn warnings from California, New York, and Maryland that they may respond with aggressive redistricting of their own. Legal experts expect litigation, and four Democratic U.S. senators have asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate whether federal officials violated the Hatch Act.

• Georgia • Black Voters Overrepresented in Massive Voter Purge: Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office recently mailed nearly 500,000 voter cancellation notices – one of the largest voter purges in U.S. history. A new analysis from Fair Fight reveals that once likely out-of-state voters are removed from the list, over 44% of those remaining are Black – despite Black voters making up just 31% of Georgia’s electorate. The data raises concerns ahead of the 2026 midterms. Fair Fight also found that young voters (ages 18–34) were the largest age group on the list, and that over half of those flagged are likely Democratic voters. Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo called it “voter suppression by administrative process.”

ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY

• Citizen-Only Voting Campaign Launches in Michigan with Election Deniers Leading the Charge: A group of Michigan election deniers  –  many of whom continue to falsely cast doubt on the legitimacy of the 2020 election  –  has launched a ballot initiative to push for a citizen-only voting policy in Oakland County. Voting rights advocates warn the effort is fueled by disinformation about noncitizen voting and designed to build support for restrictive voter registration laws, despite no evidence of widespread fraud.

• RNC Filed Motion To Defend Two Anti-Voting Laws In Montana: The Republican National Committee (RNC) and the MT GOP filed a motion to intervene as defendants in a lawsuit challenging two anti-voting laws. One of the laws, SB 490, greatly limits the hours for same-day registration by cutting it off at noon instead of 8pm, while the other, SB 276, eliminates the ability for voters without ID to cast a ballot with a declaration form and requires voters to use a valid and unexpired ID to vote.

  
  Paid for by Fair Fight Action.