Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 47
WASHINGTON (AP) — A relatively trouble-free presidential election was good news for those working to restore faith in the system. Less encouraging was a flood of misinformation that sought to undermine trust in voting and sow chaos, something experts say is likely to get worse in the years ahead. The most significant test for officials on Election Day was a series of bomb threats reported in five battleground states, some of which forced polling places to be evacuated temporarily. The day otherwise played out like most other election days, w...
RENO, Nev. (AP) — One morning last month, Cari-Ann Burgess did something completely unremarkable: She made a quick stop at a coffee shop on her way to work. For Burgess, the top election official in a northern Nevada county, such outings could be precarious. As she waited for a hot tea and breakfast sandwich, an older woman approached. "She proceeded to tell me that I should be ashamed of myself — that I'm a disgrace, I'm an embarrassment to Washoe County, and I should crawl into a hole and die," Burgess said in an interview with The Ass...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — State and local election officials from across the country on Wednesday warned that problems with the nation's mail delivery system threaten to disenfranchise voters in the upcoming presidential election, telling the head of the U.S. Postal Service that it hasn't fixed persistent deficiencies. In an alarming letter, the officials said that over the past year, including the just-concluded primary season, mailed ballots that were postmarked on time were received by local election offices days after the deadline to be c...
ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans and conservative activists have increasingly been targeting an executive order issued three years ago by the Biden administration that is intended to boost voter registration, claiming it's unconstitutional and an attempt to interfere in the November election. A recent fundraising email sent by a GOP political action committee is an example of how they are framing the order, saying it compels federal agencies "to act as Biden's personal 'Get-Out-The-Vote' machine."A Republican-led House committee recently issued s...
SCHURZ, Nevada (AP) — Members of the Walker River Paiute Tribe have watched the boundaries of their land recede over time along with the waters of the lake that are central to their identity, threatening the cultural symbol that gave the tribe its name — Agai Dicutta, or Trout Eaters. Not wanting to cede their voice, tribal leaders have been making a push for expanded voting rights. That effort includes filing a lawsuit on behalf of all Nevada tribes seeking polling places on tribal lands and access to early voting. "Tribes shouldn't have to ke...
ATLANTA (AP) — It was Election Day last November, and one of Georgia's top election officials saw that reports of a voting machine problem in an eastern Pennsylvania county were gaining traction online. So Gabriel Sterling, a Republican who had defended the 2020 election in Georgia amid an onslaught of threats, posted a message to his nearly 71,000 followers on the social platform X explaining what had happened and saying that all votes would be counted correctly. He faced immediate criticism from one commenter about why he was weighing in on a...
WASHINGTON (AP) — With election season already underway, some state election officials are expressing frustration that Congress has yet to allocate federal money they have come to rely on to help cover the costs of securing their systems from attacks, updating equipment and training staff. Election officials face a long list of challenges this year, including potential cyberattacks waged by foreign governments, criminal ransomware gangs attacking computer systems and the persistence of election misinformation that has led to harassment of elect...
WASHINGTON (AP) — A divided federal appeals court on Monday ruled that private individuals and groups such as the NAACP do not have the ability to sue under a key section of the federal Voting Rights Act, a decision that contradicts decades of precedent and could further erode protections under the landmark 1965 law. The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals based in St. Louis found that only the U.S. attorney general can enforce Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which requires political maps to include districts w...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Authorities were hunting Thursday for whoever sent suspicious letters — including some containing fentanyl — to elections offices in at least five states this week, delaying the counting of ballots in some local races in the latest instance of threats faced by election workers around the country. The letters were sent to elections offices in the presidential battlegrounds of Georgia and Nevada, as well as California, Oregon and Washington, with some being intercepted before they arrived. Four of the letters contained fenta...
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a dozen people nationally have been charged with threatening election workers by a Justice Department unit trying to stem the tide of violent and graphic threats against people who count and secure the vote. Government employees are being bombarded with threats even in normally quiet periods between elections, secretaries of state and experts warn. Some point to former President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly and falsely claiming the 2020 election was stolen and spreading conspiracy theories about election w...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Efforts to deceive the public about voting and elections remain a top concern for state election officials as they dig into preparations for the 2024 election. Misinformation and the emergence of generative artificial intelligence tools to create false and misleading content were cited in interviews with several secretaries of state gathered recently for their national conference. Other top concerns were staffing and the loss of experienced leaders overseeing elections at the local level. The officials were gathered in W...
ATLANTA (AP) — Within hours of a U.S. Supreme Court decision dismantling a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Texas lawmakers announced plans to implement a strict voter ID law that had been blocked by a federal court. Lawmakers in Alabama said they would press forward with a similar law that had been on hold. The ruling a decade ago continues to reverberate across the country, as Republican-led states pass voting restrictions that, in several cases, would have been subject to federal review had the court left the provision intact. At t...
In 2018, Democrat Katie Hobbs spent $1 million in campaign funds running to become Arizona's secretary of state, narrowly besting Republican Steve Gaynor, who spent $3.2 million in what was the most expensive race in state history for the post that oversees elections. The record stood for less than four years. This year's candidates for the state's top election position have already matched that total and will certainly eclipse it by Election Day on Nov. 8. Arizona is hardly an exception. It's just a dramatic example of how races for secretary...
WASHINGTON (AP) — MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell said Tuesday that federal agents seized his cellphone and questioned him about a Colorado clerk who has been charged in what prosecutors say was a "deceptive scheme" to breach voting system technology used across the country. Lindell was approached in the drive-thru of a Hardee's fast-food restaurant in Mankato, Minnesota, by several FBI agents, he said on his podcast, "The Lindell Report." The agents questioned him about Dominion Voting Systems, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and his c...
PHOENIX (AP) — The Trump-endorsed state lawmaker who won the GOP nomination for Arizona secretary of state is the latest candidate to advance to the November ballot for a post overseeing state elections while denying the results of the last one. The early success of such candidates is raising concerns about what happens if those who lack faith in elections are put in charge of running them. State Rep. Mark Finchem easily cleared a crowded field in Tuesday's Arizona primary. He has embraced former President Donald Trump's false claims that t...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The sheriff in Kansas' most populous county says he took it for granted that local elections ran smoothly — until former President Donald Trump lost there in 2020. Now he's assigned detectives to investigate what he claims is election fraud, even though there has been no evidence of any widespread fraud or manipulation of voting machines in 2020. Calvin Hayden in Johnson County, which covers suburban Kansas City, isn't the only sheriff in the U.S. to try to carve out a bigger role for their office in investigating elections....
ATLANTA (AP) — The expanded use of drop boxes for mailed ballots during the 2020 election did not lead to any widespread problems, according to an Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. that revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results. The findings from both Republican- and Democratic-controlled states run contrary to claims made by former President Donald Trump and his allies who have intensely criticized their use and falsely claimed they were a target for fraud. Drop b...
ATLANTA (AP) — An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by former President Donald Trump has found fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his victory margin in those states. The cas...
After a year of falsehoods surrounding the 2020 presidential election, Republican-led ballot reviews and new voting rules passed by GOP lawmakers, election officials are hoping a smooth election on Tuesday will demonstrate that the system works. The off-year elections feature local contests for mayor, city council and school board in communities across the country. Voters in some states will be deciding statewide ballot initiatives. And New Jersey and Virginia will elect governors. "There is an opportunity here to show the world and to show...
ATLANTA (AP) — Republican efforts questioning the outcome of the 2020 presidential race have led to voting system breaches that election security experts say pose a heightened risk to future elections. Copies of the Dominion Voting Systems software used to manage elections — from designing ballots to configuring voting machines and tallying results — were distributed at an event this month in South Dakota organized by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of former President Donald Trump who has made unsubstantiated claims about last year's elect...
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona county election officials have identified fewer than 200 cases of potential voter fraud out of more than 3 million ballots cast in last year's presidential election, further discrediting former President Donald Trump's claims of a stolen election as his allies continue a disputed ballot review in the state's most populous county. An Associated Press investigation found 182 cases where problems were clear enough that officials referred them to investigators for further review. So far, only four cases have led to charges, i...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is set for a key vote Tuesday on a sweeping rewrite of voting and election law, setting up a dramatic test of Democratic unity on a top priority that Republicans are vowing to block. Democrats appeared to be coalescing Thursday around changes to the bill that could win the support of moderate West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, the lone Democratic holdout on the legislation. Yet they still faced lockstep Republican opposition that will likely leave Democrats back where they started: lacking the votes to overcome a R...
ATLANTA (AP) — When voters in Florida and Georgia want to vote by mail in next year's races for governor, they will have to make sure they take one more step to ensure they receive a ballot: providing their identification. Just two states had ID requirements in 2020 for voters requesting a mailed ballot. This year, Republicans across the country have zeroed in on mail voting and enacted new limits on a process that exploded in popularity during the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to Florida and Georgia, legislation to require additional ident...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Getting nowhere in the courts, President Donald Trump's scattershot effort to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's victory is shifting toward obscure election boards that certify the vote as Trump and his allies seek to upend the electoral process, sow chaos and perpetuate unsubstantiated doubts about the count. The battle is centered in the battleground states that sealed Biden's win. In Michigan, two Republican election officials in the state's largest county initially refused to certify results despite no evidence of fraud,...
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The news release from a U.S. attorney in Pennsylvania was provocative: Nine mailed-in military ballots had been "discarded" by the local election office in a swing county of one of the most important presidential battleground states. All of them were marked for President Donald Trump, it said. Then came another news release with key details changed — the presidential choice was unknown on two of the ballots because they had been resealed — but still little explanation of what had happened and whether investigators believe...
