View this post on the web at [link removed]

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.
This will be the last edition of the year – happy holidays and happy new year!
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Who’s gonna stop you?” – Donald Trump in a recently-released recording [ [link removed] ] of a call from late 2020 to then-Speaker of the Georgia House David Ralston where he pressed Ralston to hold a special legislative session to overturn his loss.
NOTABLE TRENDS
Gutting the Voting Rights Act Could Eliminate Almost 200 State Legislative Seats Held By Democrats in the South: According to a new report [ [link removed] ] from Fair Fight Action and Black Voters Matter Fund, Republican-led legislatures could eliminate roughly 191 state legislative seats currently held by Democrats across 10 Southern states if the Supreme Court guts Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
The Court is expected to soon issue a decision in Louisiana v. Callais [ [link removed] ] that could weaken or strike down Section 2.
Across the South, the number of legislative districts where Black or Hispanic voters are a majority of the voting-age population could drop from 342 to 202, or two of every five such districts.
Black voters could be hit especially hard: more than 9 out of 10 of all such forfeited districts could be Black- majority districts, eliminating nearly half of all Black-majority districts in the South.
DOJ Wants to Require States to Purge Voters Flagged As “Ineligible”: During a hearing on the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against California for access to voter data, Eric Neff, the acting chief of the DOJ’s Voting Section, revealed [ [link removed] ] that the DOJ has sent a “confidential” memorandum of understanding (MOU) to over a dozen states that would require election officials to remove any alleged ineligible voters flagged during a federal review of the voter rolls.
Neff went on to say that 11 states (Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia) had expressed a willingness to comply based on the MOU sent to them. The MOU outlines that states would provide their voter rolls, the DOJ would test, analyze, and assess the information before notifying states of “any voter list maintenance issues, insufficiencies, inadequacies, deficiencies, anomalies, or concerns” found, and the states would remove any alleged ineligible voters within 45 days.
The DOJ would also be authorized to share the voter data with “a contractor” who needs access “to perform duties related” to voter list maintenance verification, but the MOU does not name any contractors. Recently, Rick Richards, the creator of the right wing voter purge tool EagleAI, shared [ [link removed] ] that he had spoken with the DOJ and that they “would like to use” his program. At the same time, the DOJ sued [ [link removed] ] Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Washington, DC for access to unredacted voter rolls. This brings the total number of lawsuits filed over access to voter data to 22, 21 states plus DC.
Trump’s Election Agenda and Rhetoric Adversely Affected State Election Policy: The Voting Rights Lab’s (VRL) 2025 roundup analyzed how Trump’s elections agenda and rhetoric fared in the states, finding that it had adverse effects [ [link removed] ] on the state policy landscape. VRL found that 37 restrictive voting bills were enacted, the highest number since 2021, and roughly a quarter of all enacted bills restricted access to the ballot, the highest share that VRL has recorded.
For the first time since VRL began tracking state election legislation in 2021, voter registration policy surpassed mail voting as the most common area of legislative activity, largely influenced by Trump calling on states to pass proof of citizenship mandates, which mostly failed. Once those policies failed, states pivoted to other priorities for Trump, including restricting mail voting.
According to the report, 2025 saw the most significant rollback of mail voting since 2021 despite an overall decline in mail voting bills.
Subscribe for free to stay sharp, fight back, and never miss a beat in the battle for democracy.
STATE ACTIVITY
Montana • New Absentee Ballot Birth-Year Requirement Increased Rejections and Administrative Strain: According to a report from the Montana Election Observation Initiative (MTEOI) looking at the elections in Carbon, Cascade, Lake, Lewis and Clark, and Missoula counties, a newly enacted birth year requirement for absentee ballots led to an increase in rejections [ [link removed] ]. In the observed counties, between roughly 1 and 4% of ballots needed curing because of missing or deficient information, and only 38 to 58% of those voters ultimately corrected their ballots where full data were available.
County officials attempted to contact every affected voter during the cure periods, which led to increased staff workload, slower processing, and prompted confusion. Some voters in Missoula reportedly even asked how to lodge complaints about the requirement.
North Carolina • County Election Boards Proposed Cuts to Voter Access: At least 6 counties have submitted “non-unanimous” plans to the North Carolina State Board of Elections that would make it harder to vote [ [link removed] ]. In counties including Guilford, Jackson, Harnett, Craven, Cumberland, and Pitt, Republican board members pushed for restrictive early voting plans that would eliminate or refuse to include early voting sites on college campuses or cut Sunday voting despite opposition from Democratic members.
Under state law, when county boards cannot agree on plans unanimously, the state board must review the plans and decide which one to adopt or to impose its own version.
ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY
Election Integrity Network Celebrated 2025 “Accomplishments,” Including the House Passage of the SAVE Act And Creation of Election Policies Handbook: The Election Integrity Network (EIN) shared [ [link removed] ] their “triumphs [ [link removed] ]” from 2025, their first year as an “independent non-profit organization” led by chair and founder Cleta Mitchell. Among their top “accomplishments” was the House passage of the SAVE Act, a bill that would require expensive, government documents to prove citizenship in order to register to vote.
EIN described the passage as materializing the energy around their US Citizens Elections Bill of Rights (their voter suppression agenda) and as “underscoring EIN's role in bridging grassroots concerns with federal action.”
EIN also celebrated the creation of the Election Policies Handbook, which is set for release in early 2026 and is “already generating buzz among legislators.” Other “triumphs” included dozens of voters purged in Nevada, incorporating their desired policies into North Carolina HB 958, and a 100% veto success rate against “risky election legislation” in Virginia.
Paid for by Fair Fight Action.

Unsubscribe [link removed]?