“It was a nightmare. Everything was a nightmare," said one county elections director.
@MarieAlbiges
&
@tommylisi
on the PA election officials that are burnt out and leaving their jobs.
Huge news! Today Votebeat welcomes
@JessicaHuseman
, formerly of
@ElectionLand
at
@propublica
, as our editorial director. Jessica will help lead Votebeat’s ambition to transform from a pop-up newsroom to a two-year pilot covering election admin through the 2022 midterms. 1/
Hey Texans, you have just under two months to get registered to vote for the midterms!
🗳️ Get registered for
#Election2022
or update your information here:
A North Texas elections official who was lauded by top state officials — and his critics — as one of the best administrators in the field has submitted his resignation.
Heider Garcia told county officials his last day will be June 23.
We are very excited to have
@JenAFifield
joining Votebeat after her superb coverage of the 2021 Arizona election review and conflicts over voting in Maricopa County for
@azcentral
. Reporters like Jen are what the voting beat needs now.
I’m excited to announce that I’m joining
@VoteBeatUS
as their new Arizona reporter. I’ll be one of their first local reporters in a new & exciting team that will cover voting and elections nationally, from the ground up.
Votebeat's
@NataliaECG
obtained the Gillespie County Elections Director's resignation letter through a public records request.
She says threats, Texas's new election laws, low pay and lack of staff have "completely changed" her job, making it "unsustainable."
Hey Arizona!! Votes in Maricopa County and Phoenix *will* be counted on
#ElectionDay
.
There are widespread issues with ballot tabulators, but ballots can be placed in a secure box to be counted later in the day.
Here's how that process works:
New from
@JessicaHuseman
: After "heartbroken" election admins saw funding disappear from Democrats' budget resolution, 14 SoS'es push again for federal assistance.
Misinformation is a threat to elections. Votebeat is here to report the truth.
We’re a nonprofit news organization dedicated to nonpartisan reporting on election administration and voting.
Read more on our mission from Editor-In-Chief
@chadAlorenz
:
We love this guide from
@propublica
on how to vote no matter where you live — or what language you speak.
We have guides on how to vote if you live in our four bureau states (Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas), but if you're somewhere else, please check this guide!!
You have the right to vote even if you don’t speak or read English. This guide will tell you about your right to ask for help, how to vote and what to do if you have problems.
Available in 11 languages
🧵👇
The movement to try to catch illegal voting at drop boxes in Arizona is spurring complaints and lawsuits alleging voter intimidation.
But it's not the local grassroots effort it appears to be. The volunteers are connected to the creators of "2000 Mules."
Texas Attorney General
@KenPaxtonTX
's new legal opinion gives the public immediate access to ballots after Election Day. Experts say it jeopardizes election security and invites lawsuits.
This is also counter to state and federal law. Here's what to know.
Fear-mongering over noncitizen voting is among the oldest tactics in American electoral politics. Parties have done it dozens of times in our history, even before noncitizen voting was illegal in this country.
Here's a sampling:
Votebeat is launching as a permanent newsroom. We’re a nonprofit news organization dedicated to local, nonpartisan reporting on election administration and voting.
Meet our founding team and why they’re here in this thread. 🧵
Texas is the latest state to resign from a national coalition that is one of its best tools to combat voter fraud.
ERIC is a program many states use to check duplicate voter registrations and clean voter rolls.
275,000 people, mostly Black, were not allowed to vote in Georgia's recent elections due to felony convictions—even if they were out on probation. A new bill would change that:
A Pennsylvania county rejected voters’ flawed mail ballots. Then it refused to count their in-person votes, too.
The ACLU is suing, arguing that the Board of Elections misread the law and disenfranchised eligible voters in the May primary.
Formerly incarcerated people get their voting rights back in Michigan. Advocates say this new legislation would make sure they know that — and are ready to use that right.
We're excited to be welcoming
@AlexanderShur
as Votebeat's very first reporter in Wisconsin! 🎉
Learn more and sign up to get updates on Votebeat Wisconsin's launch here:
In two weeks I'll begin a new job as the first Wisconsin reporter at
@VotebeatUS
, a nonprofit newsroom digging into the mechanics of voting and elections. I'm looking forward to covering how elections work -- and how they can work a little better
A conservative group got access to 300,000 ballots in Tarrant County, Texas, to do its own recount of the 2020 Republican primary. This may just be a warmup.
Today, we're celebrating our one-year anniversary as a permanent newsroom! 🎉 We're here to serve our fellow voters and make sure they understand our system of democracy so they can strengthen it.
Here are just a few recent stories from our reporters:
THREAD: As Votebeat wraps up our initial 3 month launch, we want to thank the reporters who made this project a success. Together, they've published almost 300 stories and helped inform their communities about election administration and voting access
Votebeat is thrilled to have Hayley Harding joining us soon as our new reporter in Michigan. As a data journalist, she has gone deep into the details that drive debates about voting and other civic issues that matter to her community. Welcome to Votebeat, Haley!
I start a new gig next week at
@VotebeatUS
, covering Michigan and elections and democracy (which are three of my favorite things)!! This is one hell of a year to start that job, and I'm so excited.
“I don’t think I realized the toll it took on me until after it was over ... and was waking up in blind panics every morning thinking about work when there was nothing to think about,” one county election director told Votebeat reporter
@CalstonChris
Early voting in Texas runs through Nov. 4.
Before you head to the polls, you should know your rights as a voter, what you need to vote and who to contact if you run into any issues.
Election offices have been besieged by requests for an obscure document sometimes produced by ballot tabulators.
But the "cast vote record" from 2020 won’t show the fraud activists hope it will. Here's what it actually is.
3 counties are suing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over his opinion granting activists access to inspect ballots right after elections.
State and federal law requires that voted ballots be kept secure for 22 months after an election.
“It’s a shock,” said Chris Davis, elections administrator in Williamson County, Texas. “This is a big loss for voters in Tarrant County because he was doing everything right."
Here's how Heider Garcia engaged with voters in his county:
This week, we're celebrating our first anniversary as a permanent newsroom! Here are 5 times in the past year that our reporting has made a difference:
With only 26 days left until November 3, and with many voters already casting ballots through early voting, local news will be critical. Enter Votebeat 👋
‘It is the wildest thing I have ever seen in elections truly’ — Jessica Huseman is breaking down the bizarre conspiracy-fueled ballot recount in Maricopa County, Arizona
Hey, Texas! You may have heard about challenges to voter registrations. You should know that at this point in the election cycle, voters aren’t at risk of being dropped from the rolls because of a challenge.
Voters in one Arizona county face higher ballot rejection rates than anywhere else in the state.
Apache County officials have been unwilling so far to adopt a vote center model, which Navajo leaders say would help solve the problem.
The Georgia State Election Board has ordered counties to hand-count all ballots. Years of evidence shows that hand-counting ballots is less accurate, more time consuming, and significantly more expensive than relying on tabulators. 🧵
Breaking news: The Georgia State Election Board approved a rule requiring counties in the critical presidential battleground to hand-count all ballots this year, potentially upending the election by delaying reporting of results by weeks if not months.
The DOJ's lawsuit against Texas calls its new requirement on matching ID numbers for absentee balloting an infringement on voting rights — the very problem
@JessicaHuseman
highlighted in July
Votebeat's
@NataliaECG
collaborated with
@ThisAmerLife
to adapt her profile of a Texas elections official into a radio story.
Heider Garcia uses a radical approach to try to win over election skeptics: tactical patience.
Listen to the story here:
Hey Texans! Early in-person voting begins today. You need to bring your ID with you in order to vote.
You can look up your nearest polling location here:
After losing her 2022 bid for governor, Kari Lake said Richer rigged the election against her. Now, she's asking the court to decide how much she owes him after he sued her for defamation.
At a gathering of state election directors, officials were not impressed with improvements in the Postal Service’s on-time performance, or a postal official’s answers.
MARICOPA UPDATE: Judge rules against Republicans, declining to keep polling sites in Maricopa open past 7 p.m. closing time.
Voters in line before closing can vote.
Despite conspiracy theories about their security, Arizona voters kept casting ballots in drop boxes in the 2022 primary.
In some Republican-heavy counties like Yavapai and Yuma, voting with drop boxes this year actually increased from past primaries.
Watching for
#Election2022
results? Patience is your friend.
Counting votes always takes time. And it may take more time than you expect to call a winner in an especially close race.
Don't jump to conclusions from early returns. Plenty more ballots will continue to be counted.
1/ It's normal for votes to be counted weeks after Election Day. Especially with this many mailed-in ballots.
A quick thread on what
@VotebeatUS
is and why we're going to be reporting well past election day.
A lawsuit alleges that True the Vote hacked data and targeted small election vendor with a racist defamatory campaign.
The case cites True the Vote's own public claims that it stole data from Michigan company that makes software for managing poll workers.
For more than a year, a coordinated group of Texas activists has mounted a statewide effort to further Trump’s lies about the 2020 election.
They're knocking on doors, inspecting ballots, and seeking personal information. Here's a look inside the group.
At Votebeat, we'll be watching the vote counting process as it continues.
If you're looking for results in Texas, our partner
@TexasTribune
will be on top of it.
But the key here is patience. Counting votes always takes time.
We will start reporting Texas election results live throughout the evening here. Bookmark this page.
Keep in mind: You won't know instantly who won. It takes time for votes to be counted. In very close races, it could be days. That's normal.
Dallas County must provide voting materials in Vietnamese this year for the first time. It's been a scramble: Not every polling place will have interpreters for the March 1 primary.
By our
@JessicaHuseman
and the Dallas Morning News'
@cscudder
Five days before Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton released his new legal opinion, his office advised counties to follow the longtime precedent.
More on that here:
✨✨some personal news ✨✨
This is my last week at The Inquirer.
Later this month, I’ll be starting at
@VotebeatUS
as its founding engagement editor! I’m so excited to dive in and help connect voters and election officials with information they need.
Elections director in Cochise County, Arizona, resigns after protecting ballots from Republican officials.
Voters are concerned about election security after Lisa Marra’s departure: “It’s kind of scary what might happen.”
A heavily Republican county in Arizona relied on drop boxes to vote in 2020, and they voted overwhelmingly for Trump.
But state legislators continue to talk about banning them or limiting drop box access.
Jessica is one of the most crucial journalists covering election administration in America. Look no further than her excellent coverage in the run-up to the 2020 election.
We are ecstatic to have
@denisethewriter
joining Votebeat as our Pennsylvania reporter to cover voting, again in collaboration with
@SpotlightPA
. Her depth of knowledge about Pa. and its people is crucial to our journalism.
Right now, I'm reading a book called "The Voting Wars", which talks about voting systems and what happens when they melt down.
I'm reading it because I'll be looking at these systems and how they impact Pennsylvania's voters as part of my new job at
@VotebeatUS
.
"Allegheny County has finished counting 313,072 mail ballots, but still has 35,413 that are unresolved in some way. Many of those — 29,000 — had to be set aside because the printer sent voters the wrong ballots." Read the latest
@SpotlightPA
Keeping ballots secure after Election Day is crucial for election integrity. Allowing the public immediate access breaks the chain of custody, which is a big security risk.
After operating as a pop-up newsroom in 2020, we’re launching today as a permanent news organization dedicated to reporting the truth in elections.
Check out some of our recent work in this thread ⬇️
"There are fantastic goals in there ... and there are pieces of the bill that will be very very difficult for election administrators to implement."
@JessicaHuseman
assesses HR1 on
@1a
Hey there, Arizona! You have just over a month to register to vote for
#Election2022
.
🗳️ Get registered, check your address, or request a mail ballot right here:
The fixation on Trump and his extremists—and even law enforcement—ignores the larger forces that led to "stop the steal," writes Votebeat's
@JessicaHuseman
A new law directs the Texas secretary of state to build its own version of a multistate cross-check program or to find a “private sector provider” with a cost that won’t exceed $100,000.
No alternatives currently exist.
In the world of elections, CTCL founder
@tianaej
and former SOS
@KYTrey
have sounded the alarm about the threats that could plague the 2022 midterms. Hear them talk about what keeps them up at night at our online panel on Oct. 14. Register!
Hey Pennsylvania, today is the primary election. Make a plan to cast your vote or drop off your mail ballot if you still have it.
Ballots must be received before 8 p.m. today. You can return them to your local election office or an officially designated location like a drop box.
Votebeat's first reporter gathering where Chalkbeat CEO
@elizwgreen
shared how the idea first occurred to her, her vision for us, and a surprise guest: thanks to the legendary
@abennett
for sharing your wisdom and inspiring us today!
How do states know if voters moved elsewhere, or died? ERIC is trusted by most states as the most effective way to perform cross-state voter registration checks and help keep their voter rolls clean.
Here's the truth about ERIC and how it works:
Georgia and Texas both had successful elections. That doesn't mean voting is easy.
New voting laws still brought challenges, and high turnout doesn’t suggest otherwise.
Some GOP election officials are campaigning by saying the elections they ran were free of fraud — but they can’t speak for everywhere else.
This kind of rhetoric can only continue to erode voter trust in the system as a whole.
Doug Mastriano’s pledge to “reset” voter registrations in Pennsylvania ignores the safeguards that already remove hundreds of thousands of ineligible voters.
Here's how Pennsylvania keeps its voter rolls clean:
🗓️ Hi Philly! TODAY is the last day to register to vote for the Nov. 7 election.
On the ballot are city council races as well as state judges. Here's everything you need to know to vote:
@VoiceVotePhilly
A fresh angle on the fate of election admin staffing in 2022 by former Votebeat journalist
@kira_lerner
. In contrast to concerns about the far right moving into some these jobs, here are signs that folks genuinely concerned about fair elections are showing up too.
“There is a critical need to protect democracy where we can control power. It really matters. It’s the last chance we’ve got.” Via
@kira_lerner
@statesnewsroom
Few Michiganders showed up to witness tests of election equipment before the Aug. 2 primary.
Logic and accuracy testing demonstrates the integrity of ballot tabulators, officials say, and more people should come to watch.