Latest news with #U.S.ElectionAssistanceCommission
2 days ago
- Politics
Trump administration accuses Wisconsin of violating federal election law
MADISON, Wis. -- The Trump administration has accused the Wisconsin Elections Commission of failing to provide a state-based complaint process for voters bringing allegations against the commission itself, calling that a violation of federal law and threatening to withhold all federal funding. But the commission's Democratic chairwoman said Thursday there is no federal funding to cut and she disputed accusations raised in a Department of Justice letter a day earlier, saying it would be nonsensical for the commission to determine whether complaints against it were valid. 'What they're asking is, if someone files a complaint against us, we're supposed to hold a hearing to determine if we messed up," Ann Jacobs said. 'That is not functional.' It marks the second time in a week that the Trump administration has targeted election leaders in battleground states. Last week, the Justice Department accused North Carolina's election board of violating federal law by failing to ensure voter registration records of some applicants contained identifying numbers. The latest letter from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division accused Wisconsin of violating the Help America Vote Act for not having a state-based administrative complaint procedure to address alleged violations by the state elections commission of the 2002 federal law. Actions by the Wisconsin Elections Commission 'have left complainants alleging HAVA violations by the Commission without any recourse,' attorneys for the Justice Department wrote. 'With no opportunity or means to appeal, complainants are left stranded with their grievances.' The elections commission just received the letter and has no comment while it is being reviewed, spokesman John Smalley said. But Jacobs, chairwoman of the commission, said the commission can't decide complaints against itself. Jacobs said that position was backed up by a 2022 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservatives. 'It appears that they're like, 'How dare you follow state law,'" Jacobs said. "I don't know what it is they want us to do.' According to the letter, Wisconsin has received more than $77 million in federal funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Justice Department threatened to stop any future payments. But Jacobs said that money was allocated years ago and the state currently receives no funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and none is proposed, leaving nothing to cut. Nonetheless, the letter could put state funding in jeopardy. Republican leaders of the state Legislature's budget committee delayed a scheduled Thursday vote on how much state funding the Wisconsin Elections Commission will receive over the next two years. 'Out of caution, we think we're just going to wait and see,' the committee's co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein said. 'We need to analyze this and see what implications are made, maybe for the entire Elections Commission, and what impact that may have on the budget.'
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump administration accuses Wisconsin of violating federal election law
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Trump administration has accused the Wisconsin Elections Commission of failing to provide a state-based complaint process for voters bringing allegations against the commission itself, calling that a violation of federal law and threatening to withhold all federal funding. But the commission's Democratic chairwoman said Thursday there is no federal funding to cut and she disputed accusations raised in a Department of Justice letter a day earlier, saying it would be nonsensical for the commission to determine whether complaints against it were valid. 'What they're asking is, if someone files a complaint against us, we're supposed to hold a hearing to determine if we messed up," Ann Jacobs said. 'That is not functional.' It marks the second time in a week that the Trump administration has targeted election leaders in battleground states. Last week, the Justice Department accused North Carolina's election board of violating federal law by failing to ensure voter registration records of some applicants contained identifying numbers. The latest letter from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division accused Wisconsin of violating the Help America Vote Act for not having a state-based administrative complaint procedure to address alleged violations by the state elections commission of the 2002 federal law. Actions by the Wisconsin Elections Commission 'have left complainants alleging HAVA violations by the Commission without any recourse,' attorneys for the Justice Department wrote. 'With no opportunity or means to appeal, complainants are left stranded with their grievances.' The elections commission just received the letter and has no comment while it is being reviewed, spokesman John Smalley said. But Jacobs, chairwoman of the commission, said the commission can't decide complaints against itself. Jacobs said that position was backed up by a 2022 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservatives. 'It appears that they're like, 'How dare you follow state law,'" Jacobs said. "I don't know what it is they want us to do.' According to the letter, Wisconsin has received more than $77 million in federal funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Justice Department threatened to stop any future payments. But Jacobs said that money was allocated years ago and the state currently receives no funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and none is proposed, leaving nothing to cut. Nonetheless, the letter could put state funding in jeopardy. Republican leaders of the state Legislature's budget committee delayed a scheduled Thursday vote on how much state funding the Wisconsin Elections Commission will receive over the next two years. 'Out of caution, we think we're just going to wait and see,' the committee's co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein said. 'We need to analyze this and see what implications are made, maybe for the entire Elections Commission, and what impact that may have on the budget.' ___ Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.
Winnipeg Free Press
2 days ago
- Politics
- Winnipeg Free Press
Trump administration accuses Wisconsin of violating federal election law
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Trump administration has accused the Wisconsin Elections Commission of failing to provide a state-based complaint process for voters bringing allegations against the commission itself, calling that a violation of federal law and threatening to withhold all federal funding. But the commission's Democratic chairwoman said Thursday there is no federal funding to cut and she disputed accusations raised in a Department of Justice letter a day earlier, saying it would be nonsensical for the commission to determine whether complaints against it were valid. 'What they're asking is, if someone files a complaint against us, we're supposed to hold a hearing to determine if we messed up,' Ann Jacobs said. 'That is not functional.' It marks the second time in a week that the Trump administration has targeted election leaders in battleground states. Last week, the Justice Department accused North Carolina's election board of violating federal law by failing to ensure voter registration records of some applicants contained identifying numbers. The latest letter from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division accused Wisconsin of violating the Help America Vote Act for not having a state-based administrative complaint procedure to address alleged violations by the state elections commission of the 2002 federal law. Actions by the Wisconsin Elections Commission 'have left complainants alleging HAVA violations by the Commission without any recourse,' attorneys for the Justice Department wrote. 'With no opportunity or means to appeal, complainants are left stranded with their grievances.' The elections commission just received the letter and has no comment while it is being reviewed, spokesman John Smalley said. But Jacobs, chairwoman of the commission, said the commission can't decide complaints against itself. Jacobs said that position was backed up by a 2022 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservatives. 'It appears that they're like, 'How dare you follow state law,'' Jacobs said. 'I don't know what it is they want us to do.' According to the letter, Wisconsin has received more than $77 million in federal funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and the Justice Department threatened to stop any future payments. But Jacobs said that money was allocated years ago and the state currently receives no funding from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and none is proposed, leaving nothing to cut. Nonetheless, the letter could put state funding in jeopardy. Republican leaders of the state Legislature's budget committee delayed a scheduled Thursday vote on how much state funding the Wisconsin Elections Commission will receive over the next two years. 'Out of caution, we think we're just going to wait and see,' the committee's co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein said. 'We need to analyze this and see what implications are made, maybe for the entire Elections Commission, and what impact that may have on the budget.' ___ Associated Press writer Todd Richmond contributed to this report.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pa. is the last state to elect poll workers. Local officials say they're short 1000s of candidates.
This article is made possible through Spotlight PA's collaboration with Votebeat, a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. Sign up for Votebeat's free newsletters here. Pennsylvania voters went to the polls last week to help carry on a centuries-old practice that no other state does: elections to choose their election workers. 'It was a great idea in the 1800s that they never got rid of,' said Thad Hall, Mercer County's election director, who just oversaw a primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates for more than 150 poll worker positions. Counties are still finalizing the results from the May 20 election. The counting includes the slow process of tabulating write-in votes, as many races don't have candidates listed on the ballot. In Mercer County, roughly 50% of the positions did not have a nominated candidate, Hall said, and he suspects 'a lot' of his open positions won't have a candidate on the ballot in November, either. There are over 9,000 voting precincts in the state, and each has three positions that need to be elected: a judge of election, and a majority and minority inspector. That means every four years, the state needs to elect more than 27,000 workers. Rarely are there enough candidates to compete in all those races. Hall said people have been known to write in their friends or family members as a joke, and those people end up winning — sometimes with just a single vote. 'You email people and they're like, 'Are you serious? Are you kidding?' And then they've got to decide if they want to do it,' he said. 'People think you're pulling their leg, because someone was pulling their leg in the first place.' Historians say Pennsylvania has been electing poll workers since 1799. According to data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, it's the only state in the country that directly elects the poll workers who run voting precincts. Most states choose them through appointment. And in Pennsylvania, if no candidate is elected in November, or the elected candidate resigns, county election directors are permitted to appoint someone to the position. Some New England states elect town officials who oversee voting locations as part of their job, but they don't necessarily elect workers for every precinct, instead hiring or appointing additional people. Most states have adopted an appointment system. The last state to do away with the practice of electing election workers was Rhode Island, in 2009. Former Rhode Island state Rep. Michael Marcello, a Democrat, wrote the bill that ended those elections. He said at the time that the change would prevent these positions from being politicized. But co-sponsor Scott Pollard, also a Democrat, recalled that there was also a more practical reason: 'We were having tremendous difficulty actually getting people to put their name on a ballot to run.' One deterrent, Pollard said, was that would-be poll workers in Rhode Island were required to file the financial forms that political candidates often have to submit to disclose any potential financial conflicts of interest. 'People are willing to do community service,' he said, 'but you can't make them jump through too many hoops to do it.' In Pennsylvania, poll worker candidates don't have to file statements of financial interest, but there are other hoops they have to jump through. As in Rhode Island, poll workers here run as partisans in the primary. To get on the primary ballot, they have to file nomination petitions, signed by enough local voters. A candidate for election judge, who oversees the voting precinct, must obtain signatures from 10 qualified voters. A candidate for inspector, who signs in voters and checks their registrations among other tasks, must get five signatures to qualify. Jay Schneider, a Chester County resident who served as an appointed judge in his precinct for the 2024 election, told Votebeat and Spotlight PA in March that these hurdles were part of the reason he chose not to run for the position this year. But not getting on the primary ballot isn't necessarily a barrier, given the lack of demand for the job. Hall, from Mercer County, said the kind of all-appointment system that most states use would help election directors. It would make it easier to move workers around if there are personality conflicts, and to remove problematic workers if needed. Additionally, it would save them the logistical burden of having hundreds of extra positions on their ballots. Jeff Greenburg, a former election director who now works for the good-government group Committee of Seventy, said that switching to an all-appointment system may solve some of the administrative problems with electing poll workers, but he wants to see more solid evidence that the switch would fix the bigger issue of poll worker shortages. Pennsylvania election officials, like many elsewhere, have struggled to keep their precincts fully staffed in recent years. 'As one person said, 'We just want someone who's breathing,'' said Devin Rhoads, Snyder County's election director. Rhoads argues that electing poll workers has benefits, too, such as imbuing the positions with an added sense of responsibility. 'If a person is elected, it carries more weight,' Rhoads said, adding that those workers will have the mindset of, 'Well, l signed up for this.' 'If you're appointed, maybe it kind of gives you a little bit of wiggle room, like, 'Well, I was just appointed, I can get out of it,'' he said. The catch in this logic is that people actually have to be willing to run for the poll worker positions. And in many places, they aren't. Rhoads estimates that roughly two-thirds of Snyder County's election worker positions won't have candidates on the ballot in the fall municipal election, meaning some workers will need to be appointed. In Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, officials say 3,500 of the roughly 4,000 elected poll worker positions on the November ballot will lack a candidate. 'People don't want to run for these positions,' said Abigail Gardner, a county spokesperson. Formally switching from an elected to an appointed poll worker system would require state legislation. Short of that, there are other things the state could do to help recruit poll workers. First, Greenburg said, counties should increase pay. The state's Election Code currently sets minimum pay at $75 for the day. But a poll worker's day is usually at least 13 hours, which works out to an hourly rate that's less than minimum wage. A bill that recently passed the state House would increase that minimum to $175, but many counties are already moving beyond that. Philadelphia offered $295 for workers in the May 20 primary. Greenberg also thinks the process for getting on the ballot should be simplified. Instead of collecting signatures on a nominating petition, he said, it could be enough for a candidate to sign an affidavit affirming that they are qualified to run for the office. Carter Walker is a reporter for Votebeat in partnership with Spotlight PA. Contact Carter at cwalker@ If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Why Trump wants to ban barcodes on ballots, and what it means for voters and election officials
President Donald Trump's new executive order on regulating elections is striking for the way it asserts broad powers for the executive branch that go far beyond what's prescribed in the Constitution or sanctioned by courts. Experts expect the order to face legal challenges for that reason. But what's also striking about the order is how it seeks to dictate some arcane details of the way voting systems work in some of America: Specifically, it bans the machine-readable barcodes or QR codes that are sometimes printed on ballots to help speed up vote counting, Votebeat reports. Trump framed this move as a return to secure, paper-based voting. But in reality, the vast majority of Americans already use paper-based systems to vote, and barcodes and QR codes are an integral part of some of those systems. Getting rid of them as quickly as Trump envisions could create confusion, hassles, and steep costs for the jurisdictions that use them, which include some of America's largest cities. It would slow down vote counts, and wouldn't necessarily improve their accuracy. So the language of the Trump order naturally raises questions about how barcodes and QR codes are used in our voting systems, and why the administration is directly targeting these codes as an urgent threat to election security and integrity. Here's a closer look at some of those questions: A fairly typical voting system that's widely accepted in U.S. elections involves hand-marked paper ballots. Voters check or fill in boxes for their choices, or write them in, and then insert the completed ballot into a machine that reads the selections and tabulates the results. Some counties in recent years have adopted a different system. In these jurisdictions, including some of the largest metropolitan counties in America, voters use a computer with a touchscreen display to make their selections. Once they're finished, the computer prints out a completed paper ballot that includes both a human-readable summary of their selections and a barcode or QR code that encodes the same information. Voters have a chance to review the printed ballot before inserting it into a tabulation machine for counting. The machine reads the coded selections, while leaving a paper record that can be double-checked by a human later. Not all machine-printed ballot systems rely solely on the codes. In many cases, the tabulators can read the marked bubbles or text selections, as with the hand-marked ballot systems. But counties that use barcode-based systems say they allow for faster, more efficient counting without sacrificing accuracy. While the Constitution gives state legislatures and Congress the power to determine how elections are run, Trump is aiming to regulate them in part through the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, an agency that helps develop guidelines for states and local governments to ensure that their voting systems are secure and accurate, and oversees certification of new systems. Trump's order directs the EAC to amend the federal Voluntary Voting System Guidelines to say that voting systems are not allowed to use QR codes or barcodes in the counting of votes, except when necessary to accommodate voters with disabilities. Trump's order gives the EAC 180 days to review and potentially recertify voting systems under these updated standards, and rescind certifications based on previous guidelines. The VVSG sets minimum standards for how election systems should operate. Although they're officially voluntary, most states use them as benchmarks when choosing election equipment, and many states have laws requiring new voting equipment to meet current VVSG standards, effectively making compliance mandatory at the state or local level. On March 27, a coalition of civil rights groups released a letter to the EAC saying it would be illegal for the agency to take action in response to Trump's executive order. The president "has no authority to direct the Commission" to modify the VVSG, the groups wrote, adding that any such changes must follow the timelines and processes set in federal law. The concern involves the demand for voter-verifiable paper records, a system that blends paper ballots with machine verification and tabulation for accessibility, efficiency, and security. Election security experts consider this the gold standard because it ensures that voters can check their selections before casting their ballot, and it creates a physical record that can be used for an audit or recount later if needed. Nearly all U.S. states have transitioned to these types of voting systems, including some that rely on barcodes or QR codes. (Louisiana and some parts of Texas still use electronic systems that produce no paper records.) Trump's executive order affirms support for voter-verifiable paper records as the nationwide standard. But his opposition to barcodes responds to the concerns of critics and some election security experts who say barcode-based systems don't produce voter-verifiable paper records, because what the machine tabulates is based on a code, not the selections that humans can read. The voter can't truly verify what the machine is reading. The QR code could theoretically be inaccurate, or manipulated to misrepresent votes, without the voter's knowledge, these critics argue. This debate isn't new. Colorado's Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in 2019 that the state would eliminate QR codes from ballots as a proactive step to avoid any vulnerability. And former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein fought, unsuccessfully, to have this type of voting machine decertified in Pennsylvania on these grounds. Georgia passed legislation last year requiring QR codes to be removed from ballots by 2026. One notable case is from Northampton County, Pennsylvania, in 2023, where the choices represented by the machine-generated code differed from the selections that appeared on the human-readable printout. But in this case, county officials said, it was the code that accurately reflected the voter's choices. A programming error had caused the text version to incorrectly display voters' choices in a judicial retention race. But the votes were tabulated correctly based on the code. Barcodes or no barcodes, every state but Alabama requires post-election audits to ensure the accuracy of results. According to Verified Voting, an organization focused on election technology, there are 1,954 counties spread across 40 states that use voting machines that print QR or barcodes. Some have only a small number for use only by voters with disabilities (and would therefore not have to get rid of them), while other jurisdictions use them for all voters. Among the users are some very large jurisdictions, including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Dallas. The executive order would require those jurisdictions to replace or update all of their machines on a short timetable, costing potentially millions of dollars. In debates leading up to Georgia's ban, the costs associated with eliminating QR codes were estimated at up to $66 million for new equipment and software updates. Portage County, a 70,000-person county in central Wisconsin, just spent $750,000 to switch to ExpressVote machines, which print voters' choices on a paper ballot and encodes them in machine-readable barcodes—the type of voting machines that may be disallowed under this order. The most updated guidelines, VVSG 2.0, were passed in 2021. No voting systems designed to these standards are yet on the market, but the agency has three systems currently in its certification process. The VVSG 2.0 guidelines require a voter-verifiable paper trail, according to Kristen Muthig, the EAC's director of communications. Barcodes are allowed if they "include human-readable representations of the ballot for a voter or auditor to verify," Muthig told Votebeat. This means codes can be used to speed up machine tabulation, but they cannot be the sole record of a voter's choices—there must also be printed text that clearly reflects those choices. Counties using barcode-assisted systems would need to replace expensive equipment, retrain poll workers, and educate voters, all under tight timelines ahead of the November election. That could cause disruptions and confusion during the initial implementation phases. Moreover, the removal of QR codes could affect the speed and efficiency of vote tabulation, as optical scanning systems can process QR codes more quickly and accurately than human-readable text. This story was produced by Votebeat and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
