Bad News Weekly: September 5, 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

“The other aims are that he’d like to stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections. He’ll just claim that there’s some problem with an election, and then he’s got troops on the ground that can take control if, in fact, he’s allowed to do this.” – Illinois Governor JB Pritzker (D) on Trump’s plan to send troops to major cities.

NOTABLE TRENDS

• Trump Said He Will Sign An Executive Order To Require Voter ID And Reiterated Plan To Ban Mail Voting: In a Truth Social post on Saturday August 30, President Trump said that he would sign an executive order to require voter ID for all elections with “NO EXCEPTIONS.” In the post, Trump doubled down on his plan to ban mail voting, adding exceptions for the “very ill” and the “far away military”, and reiterated his desire to “USE PAPER BALLOTS ONLY” in elections. Any executive order aimed at overhauling elections would likely face a legal challenge like Trump’s March executive order that was mostly blocked by a federal judge. However, some counties and states have taken steps to implement the order, such as three counties in Texas that are planning to conduct elections using hand marked paper ballots, potentially signalling what could happen with future elections-focused executive orders. Outside of Truth Social, Trump has continued to attack mail voting and claimed that Colorado's universal mail voting system was a factor in the decision to move the Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama.

• DOJ Continued to Seek Voter Data And to Try to Access Voting Equipment:

  • In Missouri, Department of Justice (DOJ) official Andrew McCoy “Mac” Warner, former West Virginia Secretary of State who shared false claims about the 2020 election, reached out to at least two county clerks (Jasper and McDonald counties) requesting to “access, physically inspect and perhaps take physical custody” of election equipment made by Dominion Voting Systems that was used in the 2020 presidential election. Both clerks denied the request since state law prohibits unauthorized access to voting equipment.

  • In South Carolina, the DOJ requested the entire voter registration list with sensitive information included, which Governor Henry McMaster (R) “fully supports.” However, a judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing the state Election Commission from sharing the data until a hearing on September 10.

  • A number of other states, including Arizona, Illinois, and New Hampshire, have continued to deny the DOJ’s request while others, including Michigan, have provided at least some of what the DOJ has requested. 

• Nongovernmental Groups Banned From Registering Voters At Naturalization Ceremonies: The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a memo stating “that only state and local election officials will be permitted to offer voter registration services at the end of administrative naturalization ceremonies.” Nongovernmental groups, such as the League of Women Voters, have often partnered with local and state election officials or supplemented their work to register voters. Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, said in a statement that this new policy “is an attempt to keep new citizens from accessing their full rights.”

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STATE ACTIVITY

• Arizona • Cochise County Supervisors Considered Challenging State Election Laws Again Ahead of 2026 Midterms: In 2022, Cochise County made headlines after two Republicans on the Board of Supervisors tried to hand count ballots and then delayed the vote to certify election results, both of which were stopped by a judge. Now, the county Board of Supervisors, which still includes one of the supervisors in that case, Tom Crosby, who is now awaiting criminal trial on charges related to the 2022 incidents, are considering testing the boundaries of state election laws. “I think we have to put this back in play in the courts,” Supervisor Frank Antenori said about supervisors’ duty to certify elections. The supervisors have also repeatedly discussed getting rid of tabulation machines and challenging the state’s ballot tabulation law.

• North Carolina • State Board of Election And DOJ Reached Agreement In Lawsuit That Could Require Thousands of Voters To Vote Using Provisional Ballot: Earlier this year, the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the state for allegedly violating the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) by not requiring certain information to register voters. The State Board of Elections and the DOJ have reached a proposed agreement to end the case that, if approved by a federal judge, would require the state to use a voter registration form that complies with HAVA, update its voter rolls, and contact voters with missing information to update their records. If voters with missing information do not update their registration, they would be required to cast a provisional ballot. The State Board of Elections had already begun contacting the over 100,000 affected voters in July, and more than 80,000 still have not updated their information. The proposed agreement would also require the state to provide the federal government with voter records that include sensitive information such as the last four digits of their Social Security numbers upon request.

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ANTI-VOTING GROUP ACTIVITY

• Cleta Mitchell Suggested Trump Could Declare A National Emergency To Takeover Federal Elections: In an appearance on the Family Research Council podcast, Cleta Mitchell, former Trump lawyer and head of the Election Integrity Network (EIN), suggested that Trump could declare a national emergency to allow him to take control of federal elections. “The president’s authority is limited in his role with regard to elections except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States – as I think that we can establish with the porous system that we have…Then, I think maybe the president is thinking that he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,” Mitchell said.

  Paid for by Fair Fight Action.