The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services issued an announcement that nongovernmental groups are barred from registering new voters at naturalization ceremonies. Only state and local election officials are now permitted to register voters at these ceremonies. 

At a naturalization ceremony in Ulster, the League of Women Voters continued to register new voters. Despite the new policy, the group’s Mid-Hudson Region chapter attended a ceremony at SUNY Ulster where they registered 14 new voters.

In a case stemming from North Dakota's 2021 redistricting plan, the Supreme Court is being asked to decide whether citizens can sue under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

The justices paused the Eighth Circuit's ruling from taking effect while the court decides whether to hear the case. But, if the Court ultimately upholds that decision nationwide, it would represent the most significant rollback of voting rights since Shelby County v. Holder in 2013.

The AZ Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit by the state GOP and anti-voting groups that sought to restrict how mail-in ballot signatures are verified. The court found the plaintiffs lacked standing, and that the matter was one of partisan disagreement.

Democracy Docket writes: "With nearly 90% of Arizonans voting by mail, the ruling preserves a flexible signature verification system that prevents wrongful ballot rejections, while also making clear that courts won’t indulge partisan lawsuits..."

In a major win for PA voters, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a ruling requiring Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots that are undated or wrongly dated. In a unanimous opinion, the court found the date requirement violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments, noting it has led to thousands of ballots being wrongly discarded in past elections.

Judge D. Brooks Smith stressed that democracy is about counting votes, not disqualifying them on technicalities. 

Heather Honey, a prominent election conspiracy theorist, has been appointed as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Elections Integrity at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Honey is the founder of Pennsylvania Fair Elections and has been involved in efforts to undermine the 2020 election, remove registered voters from states rolls and spread election-based lies and conspiracies. Her appointment raises concerns about the growing influence of election denial networks within federal agencies.

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument for Callais v. Landry on October 15, a high-stakes Louisiana redistricting case that could upend the Voting Rights Act.

By ordering supplementary briefs and asking whether majority-minority districts themselves violate the Constitution, the conservative-majority Court signaled it may use the case to upend Section 2 of the VRA. 

On August 27th, both parties submitted supplemental briefs to the Court, as requested. 

The Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE program, which verifies immigration and citizenship status, is used by some states to help determine voter eligibility. However, SAVE relies on outdated and incomplete databases, raising the risk of misidentifying citizens as noncitizens and prompting erroneous voter purges. The Brennan Center cautions that the “SAVE program should be considered useful, but not definitive, in assessing an individual’s citizenship.”

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a letter to various states, including the New York State Board of Elections, requesting access to the state’s full voter registration rolls and posing questions about how New York is complying with the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). The move represents an unprecedented expansion of federal involvement in elections, which are managed by states.

After sending requesting voter data from states, the DOJ announced that it is “exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems.” The New York Times reports that this exploration is not based on new evidence, data, or legal authority.

A federal judge in Massachusetts has blocked Trump’s executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, as well as a directive to penalize states that count mail ballots after Election Day.

This marks the second major ruling against the order, building on an April 25th decision in D.C., but goes further by fully blocking the executive order from taking effect until resolution of the case.

A New York state appeals court upheld a 2023 law shifting many local elections to even years, aligning them with state and federal contests.

The unanimous decision reverses a lower court's ruling that deemed the law unconstitutional. The law takes effect in 2025 and impacts several local offices outside of NYC, resulting in shortened terms for some elected officials.

Federal court temporarily blocks President Trump's executive order requiring documentary proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

On April 10th, the House of Representatives passed the SAVE Act -Republicans’ latest attempt to suppress the vote under the pretense of election security.

This bill creates barriers, not solutions by imposing documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements that would disenfranchise millions.

While the SAVE Act is not expected to become federal law, the bill has already spawned copycat legislation in state legislatures across the country.

On March 25th, President Trump issued an executive order seeking greater control over U.S. elections by imposing proof-of-citizenship requirements for voter registration, restricting mail-in ballots, and granting Elon Musk’s DOGE access to sensitive voter data.

The order poses an urgent threat to voting rights and election integrity, but faces multiple legal challenges from Democrats and voting rights groups.

The New York Court of Appeals struck down a law that would have allowed over 800,000 non-citizens to vote in NYC municipal elections. The 6-1 decision reaffirmed lower court rulings that the state constitution limits voting rights to U.S. citizens.