Topics /
Election LAW
21 stories on Election LAW. For each one: what the left says, what the right says, and what both agree on. RSS feed
- Court Rejects Trump Bid to Set Aside 20,000 CA Ballots
Nov 1, 2026
Left: The DOJ's list of suspected noncitizens was found not credible by both the district court and appeals court majority, undermining the basis for the entire legal action.
Right: Federal law clearly prohibits noncitizens from voting, and the DOJ views enforcing that law as a basic governmental duty rather than a political agenda.
- Supreme Court Lets Trump Restrict Mail Voting Weeks Before Midterms
Aug 25, 2026
Left: The ruling doesn't address whether Trump's order is actually constitutional, only whether states sued too soon, leaving voters vulnerable in the meantime with no clear path to challenge harm until it's already happening.
Right: The executive order is a lawful effort to verify citizenship and secure federal elections, and the states suing had not shown any concrete harm from an internal directive that doesn't dictate how they run their own elections.
- GOP Election Officials Join Democrats Against Trump's Mail Ballot Rule
Sep 12, 2026
Left: A federal district court and a unanimous three-judge appeals panel both found the executive order likely unlawful, reinforcing that this is not merely a partisan dispute but a legal one grounded in the president lacking authority to regulate state election procedures.
Right: The Trump administration views the mail ballot rule as a reasonable safeguard to standardize envelope design and verify voter lists, aiming to strengthen confidence in election integrity ahead of high-stakes midterms.
- Trump Admin Sues to Block Alaska Election Results Before They Happen
Oct 27, 2026
Left: The lawsuit asks a court to delay certifying an election before any results exist, effectively preparing a legal mechanism to contest the outcome only if the Republican incumbent loses, not if he wins.
Right: Alaska's own Division of Elections reportedly determined that Daniel J. Sullivan's candidacy was intended to mislead voters, giving the DOJ grounds to argue the ballot itself risks distorting the true outcome.
- Trump Pushes to Kill Filibuster, Pitting Him Against Thune
Jul 28, 2026
Left: Eliminating the filibuster would allow a bare Senate majority to enact sweeping voter ID, proof-of-citizenship, and mail-in ballot restrictions that critics say could suppress eligible voters and disproportionately burden minorities, the poor, and the elderly who lack easy access to documentation.
Right: Securing elections through voter ID, proof of citizenship, and limits on mail-in ballots is a commonsense safeguard that the American people overwhelmingly support and deserve to see enacted.
- Judge Blocks Trump Mail Ballot Rule Again, Days Before Ballots Mail Out
Aug 28, 2026
Left: States and voting rights groups warn that the USPS rule was rushed into effect with no time for election officials to redesign ballots, reorder envelopes, retrain staff, or upload voter data before ballots must go out.
Right: The executive order is framed as a straightforward measure to verify citizenship and protect election integrity by ensuring only eligible voters receive and cast mail ballots.
- Olive Garden's Pasta Pass ID Rule Reignites Voter ID Debate
Jul 18, 2026
Left: Comparing a private restaurant promotion to the fundamental right to vote is a false equivalence, since a $100 discretionary purchase is not comparable to a constitutional right that must remain accessible to all eligible citizens.
Right: A private company can enforce stricter identity verification for a $100 pasta promotion than many states require to cast a ballot in a federal election, which strikes many as backward.
- Trump Withholds Signature on Housing Bill to Force Voter ID Vote
Jul 12, 2026
Left: Trump's refusal to sign a bill that passed 358-32 in the House and 85-5 in the Senate undermines his own party's midterm-year effort to address voters' top concern about rising costs.
Right: Trump argues the SAVE America Act is critical to protecting election integrity, calling it 'saving America from crooked elections,' and notes it polls at 97% within the Republican Party.
- Supreme Court poised to invalidate mail ballots arriving after Election Day
Mar 24, 2026
Left: States have constitutional authority to set their own election procedures, including ballot receipt deadlines, as they have done for decades without controversy
Right: Federal law clearly establishes Election Day as a specific date when voting must conclude, not a flexible period that can be extended by state preferences
- Judge Blocks Trump's Mail Ballot Rule Again, Defying SCOTUS?
Aug 29, 2026
Left: The USPS rule imposes onerous new compliance burdens on states just months before the 2026 midterms, making it practically impossible for election officials to meet the requirements in time.
Right: The USPS rule simply asks states to submit basic voter data, such as names, addresses, and unique barcodes, to help secure the mail ballot process, far short of stricter measures like proof-of-citizenship requirements.
- Federal Appeals Court Skeptical of DOJ Bid to Toss California Ballots
Oct 27, 2026
Left: The Elections Clause gives state legislatures, not the federal executive, authority over election administration, and California followed its own legally adopted procedures.
Right: The Justice Department believes it has identified roughly 20,000 mail ballots tied to individuals it suspects are noncitizens and argues these ballots should be verified before being counted alongside legitimate votes.
- Supreme Court blocks Trump's mail-ballot rules for midterms
Sep 18, 2026
Left: The ruling protects a mail voting system already used safely by roughly a third of American voters, preventing last-minute chaos just weeks before ballots go out or have already gone out in states like North Carolina, Alabama, and Wisconsin.
Right: The White House maintains these were commonsense safeguards meant to protect ballot security and ensure only eligible Americans vote, not an attempt to disenfranchise anyone.
- Nevada 'Fake Electors' Case Dismissed as Prosecutions Nationwide Collapse
Aug 14, 2026
Left: Judges evaluating intent rather than the underlying conduct have repeatedly cleared defendants, but that legal outcome does not mean the 2020 elector scheme was legitimate or harmless to democratic norms.
Right: Multiple courts across different states have now independently concluded that Republican electors lacked the fraudulent intent required for criminal charges, undercutting the narrative that this was a criminal conspiracy.
- Trump Pressures Skeptical Senate GOP to Ram Through SAVE Act
Jul 30, 2026
Left: The SAVE America Act's core provisions are being packaged into a must-pass budget bill specifically to dodge the 60-vote filibuster threshold and avoid genuine bipartisan scrutiny.
Right: Voter ID and citizenship verification for registration are broadly popular policies that Republicans argue are commonsense safeguards against the documented discovery of ineligible individuals on voter rolls.
- GOP Senate blocks Trump's SAVE America Act amid filibuster fight
Jul 27, 2026
Left: Provisions like proof-of-citizenship requirements, ending universal mail-in ballots, and bans on transgender athletes and youth transition care are bundled into a bill framed as election security but carry significant policy consequences beyond voting access.
Right: Eighty-four percent of Americans, including most Democrats, support requiring proof of citizenship before voter registration, showing the bill's core provisions have broad public backing.
- GOP Fractures Over SAVE America Act Voter ID Rider
Jul 23, 2026
Left: Requiring documentary proof of citizenship and photo ID to vote imposes real burdens on elderly, rural, low-income, and Native American voters who lack easy access to underlying documents or ID-issuing offices.
Right: Requiring photo ID and proof of citizenship to vote is broadly popular, including among many independents, and is framed as basic common-sense protection for election integrity.
- Supreme Court May Invalidate Thousands of Mail-In Ballots
Mar 25, 2026
Left: The Republican lawsuit relies on a frivolous legal theory that claims Congress banned counting absentee ballots in 1845, yet somehow no one noticed this prohibition for nearly two centuries
Right: Federal law establishes Election Day as the definitive deadline when elections must be completed, and accepting ballots afterward undermines this constitutional framework
- DOJ Sues to Block Alaska Election Results If Sullivan Loses
Oct 27, 2026
Left: The lawsuit demands certification be blocked only if Peltola wins, revealing it as a one-sided mechanism to preserve a Republican seat rather than a neutral concern about voter confusion.
Right: The head of Alaska's own Election Commission has raised concerns that the second Dan Sullivan's candidacy exists solely to confuse voters and siphon votes from the sitting senator.
- Biden Judge Rules Congress Can't Ban Noncitizens From Voting
Oct 3, 2026
Left: The ruling rests on a textual reading of the Constitution, which assigns states — not Congress — the primary authority to set voter qualifications for elections.
Right: Congress has long relied on its immigration and federal election authority to bar noncitizens from voting, and this ruling undermines a commonsense safeguard that has existed since 1996.
- Supreme Court Could Invalidate Hundreds of Thousands of Mail-In Votes
Mar 23, 2026
Left: Fourteen states currently allow mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if received within a grace period, protecting voters from postal service delays beyond their control
Right: Federal law establishes a singular Election Day for federal races, and counting ballots that arrive after this date violates congressional intent
- Trump threatens to block all bills until voting overhaul passes
Mar 9, 2026
Left: The SAVE America Act would make voting harder for eligible citizens by requiring documents like passports or birth certificates that many Americans don't readily have
Right: Requiring voter ID and proof of citizenship enjoys 88% support among all voters according to polling, making it a common-sense reform