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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
“If this sounds like an all-out assault on our democracy by the Trump administration, that’s because it is.” – Joanna Lydgate, president and CEO of States United Democracy Center, on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s ‘blackmail’ letter [ [link removed] ]to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz demanding access to voter rolls.
NOTABLE TRENDS
DOJ Escalated Effort to Access Voter Rolls With “Blackmail” Letter: Hours after ICE agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Attorney General Pam Bondi sent a letter [ [link removed] ] to Gov. Tim Walz (D) blaming state and local leaders for unrest in the state and claiming that Walz could “restore the rule of law” by complying with a list of demands, including providing the Department of Justice with the state’s voter rolls.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon rejected this demand, stating [ [link removed] ] “To tie this somehow to the tragedy around us — the bloodshed, the violence, the anguish that Minnesotans are going through — is something I just can’t explain.”
A number of election officials across the country have also spoken out [ [link removed] ] against Bondi’s letter, calling it “blackmail” and “ransom.”
Congress Introduced New Sweeping Anti-Voting Bill, The “Make Elections Great Again” Act, And a New Version of the SAVE Act: House Republicans, led by House Administration Committee Chair Bryan Steil (R), introduced [ [link removed] ] the “Make Elections Great Again” Act, a sweeping anti-voting bill that builds off of the SAVE Act and American Confidence in Elections Act. The bill would require photo ID when casting a ballot, citizenship verification upon voter registration, mail ballots to be received by the close of polls on Election Day to be counted, and stronger routine voter list maintenance, among other changes.
Separately, Sen Mike Lee and Rep Chip Roy announced [ [link removed] ] the introduction of the SAVE America Act, a new version of the SAVE Act that includes voter ID, after President Trump encouraged them to do so.
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STATE ACTIVITY
Georgia • FBI Raided Fulton County Election Office, Seizing 2020 Ballots: The FBI executed a search warrant at a Fulton County elections operation center, “a significant escalation in President Donald Trump’s breaking of democratic norms [ [link removed] ].” The warrant sought all physical ballots from the 2020 general election in Fulton County, all tabulator tapes for every voting machine, all ballot images produced during the original ballot count, and all voter rolls from the 2020 election.
Fulton County Commission Chair Robb Pitts expressed concern over the security of the seized ballots while Rick Hasen, a professor at the law school of the University of California, Los Angeles, stated that it appeared as “a way to use the might of the federal government to further Trump’s voter fraud narratives.”
North Carolina • State Board of Elections Are Considering A Plan to Flag Voters As “Presumptive Noncitizens”: The North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) is considering [ [link removed] ] a proposed plan that states that the board would send a “notice of noncitizenship” flagging a “presumptive noncitizen” to county boards. If the county board can not locate documentation of a voter’s citizenship in its records, then it would enter a challenge to the voter’s eligibility to remain registered to vote, set a preliminary hearing, send a notice to the voter, and either dismiss the challenge if documentation is provided or set a date for a second hearing to make a final decision.
The Southern Coalition for Social Justice, League of Women Voters of North Carolina, and the Fair Elections Center warned [ [link removed] ] that the proposed concept creates “significant risk that eligible voters will be removed in error.
Utah • Senate Committee Passed 157-Page Omnibus Anti-Voting Bill: The Utah Senate Government Operations and Political Subdivisions Committee passed [ [link removed] ]SB 194 [ [link removed] ], a 157-page omnibus anti-voter bill. The bill would create a “bifurcated ballot system” that would give voters a federal-only ballot if they refuse to provide proof of citizenship, make names on voter rolls public, and require the lieutenant governor to conduct an audit to determine whether the state has proof of citizenship for every voter record, among other changes.
ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY
Election Integrity Network And Others Celebrated FBI Raid In Fulton County As “Proof” of 2020 Election Conspiracy: Following the news of the FBI raid in Fulton County, a number of anti-voting groups and individuals celebrated on social media. The Election Integrity Network said [ [link removed] ] they were “delighted” over the news while Cleta Mitchell, who runs the Election Integrity Network, said [ [link removed] ] it was “time for truth in Fulton County.”
Jason Frazier, a mass voter challenger who helped develop EagleAI, shared [ [link removed] ] a photo of himself and VoterGA co-founder Garland Favorito posing with the “Crime Scene Do Not Cross” tape at the election office.
Favorito, Frazier, Mitchell, and Georgia State Election Board members Salleigh Grubbs and Janice Johnston [ [link removed] ] also all [ [link removed] ] appeared [ [link removed] ] on Steve Bannon’s War Room to celebrate the raid.
Paid for by Fair Fight Action.

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