Jen reports on threats to democracy in states across the country. She previously covered elections and local government at the Houston Chronicle and at Houston’s NPR station. She loves voting early on Halloween.
In an eleventh-hour maneuver, Utah Republicans closed out the state legislative session by passing a measure aimed at making it more difficult for voters to remove their signatures from a petition supporting a ballot initiative to legalize partisan gerrymanders.
A Republican attorney who played a key role in President Donald Trump’s unprecedented mid-decade Texas gerrymander last year is now the GOP nominee to represent one of the very congressional districts he helped redraw.
“Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of our democracy, but right now they are under threat,” Obama said.
Baffled Texans in two counties struggled to find their polling locations for primary voting Tuesday after a GOP-driven change. The secretary of state’s office failed to provide accurate information. Texas’ Republican attorney general sued to oppose extended voting hours for those confused voters. And the GOP-controlled state Supreme Court quickly ruled in its favor.
Utah Republicans working to repeal the state’s ban on partisan gerrymandering have ostensibly gathered enough signatures to put their measure on the November ballot, but it’s still too soon to know whether that will actually happen.
Kansans are fighting back in court to block a new state law that invalidated transgender residents’ driver’s licenses and birth certificates, depriving them of their required voter ID just a few months before the state’s 2026 primary election.
Virginia voters will head to the polls starting Friday to weigh in on a plan to redraw the congressional map in response to GOP gerrymanders in other states after a court ruled Monday that election preparations can move forward.
The Florida House of Representatives voted 83-31 Wednesday to move forward with a sweeping voter suppression bill that could disenfranchise tens of thousands of Floridians, at least, by creating new requirements for citizenship checks.
When President Donald Trump called on Republican-controlled states to redraw their congressional maps to favor the GOP, he created a windfall for Patriot Grassroots.
In an unexpected development, Utah Republicans announced over the weekend that they had submitted enough signatures to put a pro-gerrymander measure on the ballot.