Matt is a senior reporter covering elections, voting rights and threats to democracy. He’s covered far-right extremism, dark money and state and local elections as an investigative reporter at The American Independent and Mother Jones. Prior to reporting on politics, Matt cut his teeth as a local reporter in D.C. at the Washington City Paper and DCist.
Without four commissioners leading the agency, it leaves states with a huge resource gap as they prepare for the midterm elections.
It’s not unusual for DOJ to send election monitors during federal elections, but targeting Democratic cities in a key battleground state escalates fears about the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to interfere in this fall’s midterms.
Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson said that the General Assembly will convene Aug. 3-5 to consider legislation to put a redistricting amendment before voters in November.
The shift reflects a broader effort by the anti-voting right to soften its conspiratorial ideas to appeal to a wider base, sow distrust in routine election procedures, and court support for the GOP’s harsh anti-voting policies.
Polis went against his own 11-person clemency advisory board, which twice voted unanimously against recommending clemency for Peters.
Mitchell’s attack on early voting offers a stark reminder of the right’s remarkable zeal to abolish almost any form of voting that expands access.
State voting chiefs and voting rights advocates noted that the ruling is a crucial victory reaffirming that states, not the president, hold the power to set election rules.
The ruling marks the 11th straight loss for the DOJ, which sued 30 states and D.C., in an unprecedented effort to obtain unredacted statewide voter registration lists.
The right also used the decision to bolster an ongoing push for President Donald Trump’s SAVE America Act — though the measure does not address the issue at stake in the case.
Recent comments raise concerns that conservative figures with close ties to the president may be using their connections to push the Trump administration to take drastic measures to interfere in November’s elections.