A nonprofit closely tied to former President Donald Trump and his administration gave millions of dollars in 2020 to an array of conservative groups, a new tax filing from the nonprofit, now called America First Works, shows. The largest grant to an outside group, nearly $4.8 million, went to Donors Trust, a donor-advised fund often […]
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Posted inWatchdog newsletter
Election officials scramble to find poll workers
A few weeks ago, election officials in Camden County, New Jersey were starting to worry. Already halfway through poll worker recruitment and training, they still had too many empty spots. “We were a little bit panicky,” remembers Richard Ambrosino, a member of the elections board in the southern New Jersey county. Many older poll workers […]
Posted inVeterans Charities
Donors file class action lawsuit against Las Vegas telemarketer alleging scam PAC scheme
Political donors filed a class action lawsuit this week against Richard Zeitlin, a Las Vegas-based telemarketer they accuse of facilitating a “massive money-making scheme.” Zeitlin was the focus of an investigation by the Center for Public Integrity in 2019. The lawsuit alleges Zeitlin and his companies violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by “siphoning … […]
Posted inDemocracy
Texas abortion law reflects GOP turn towards citizen enforcement
The new Texas law effectively banning nearly all abortions in the state relies on private citizens to enforce it, the highest-profile example of a growing push by Republicans to give supporters broad power to sue over issues important to their base. A Tennessee law allows any student, teacher or employee to sue if they are […]
Posted inDemocracy
Redistricting will always be contentious. Ask Arizona.
This story also appeared in HuffPost Some of the written public comments flowing into Arizona’s independent redistricting commission during its April 27 meeting struck similar notes: Arizonans describing themselves as transplants to the state, worried about the partisan ties of one of the companies bidding to handle the high-stakes redrawing of political maps. “I moved […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Tight deadline, savvy pitch: How one red state expanded access to the ballot
This story was published in partnership with HuffPost. On the afternoon of January 21, a group of public officials gathered in Kentucky’s Capitol in Frankfort for a delicate conversation about changing how the state conducts elections. Masked and spread out in a room typically used for committee hearings, they didn’t have much time. There were only […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Georgia Republicans want to reshape voting laws, burdening voters of color
Stephanie Lopez-Burgos stood in line about 35 minutes when she went to vote early in Georgia’s Senate runoff election and felt lucky it wasn’t longer. She saw social media posts from many Hall County residents who waited more than an hour — some of whom had to leave without voting. This story also appeared in […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Republicans target ballot access after record turnout
The months after November’s presidential election have been filled with conspiracy theories, lies and myths about the security and integrity of U.S. elections, led by former President Donald Trump and many Republican leaders. This story also appeared in Stateline As a result, polls show that more than half of Republican voters wrongly believe that President […]
Posted inDemocracy
Analysis: Threats to democracy on Inauguration Day, and the lies that got us here
This is a news analysis from the Center for Public Integrity. Today’s inauguration, part of the ritual of American democracy, is offset by images usually associated with a coup. Thousands of armed National Guard members are juxtaposed with the monuments and symbols that tell the American story. The Washington Monument. The Lincoln Memorial. And the […]
Posted inDemocracy
Corporate America presses pause on political contributions
Weeks before a 2018 special U.S. Senate election in Mississippi, a video came out in which Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican running for the seat, could be heard saying that if a political supporter “invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” Her comments set off a furor. Corporate donors […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Democrats push wide-ranging voting, ethics reforms in charged moment for democracy
A sweeping package of voting-rights, government-ethics and anti-corruption measures failed to make it through Congress in 2019, but an updated version of the bill is at the top of Democrats’ agenda. Proponents say the aftermath of the 2020 election and last week’s violent attack on the U.S. Capitol makes the need for the legislation more […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Trump-backing nonprofit gave millions to groups registering voters in swing states, tax filing shows
A nonprofit created to support President Donald Trump and his administration gave more than $2 million in 2019 to newly formed groups whose contacts with voters came under investigation in both Florida and North Carolina this year, according to a new tax filing from the group, America First Policies. America First Policies’ president is named […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Across the country, voters remove racist symbols and language from founding documents
More than a century ago, white Mississippians devised a way to almost guarantee that no African American — or Black residents’ preferred candidate — would ever hold real political power in the state. It’s among the discriminatory measures voters changed across the country last week. After months of unrest sharpened the nation’s attention to racial […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Native Americans, hit hard by COVID-19, faced major barriers to vote
Leatrice Hendricks had 90 minutes to turn in absentee ballots from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation to the clerk’s office in Corson County, South Dakota. She had stopped by 25 homes where fellow tribal members were quarantined with COVID-19, driving for hours to get the ballots to them. Hendricks waited outside as voters filled […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
After historic early voting surge, fewer hiccups on Election Day
POMEROY, Pa. — In Chester County, a hotly contested Philadelphia suburb, Republicans and Democrats agreed on one thing: the need to help voters find their polling place after the county sent a last-minute notification listing an incorrect location. Barbara Skowood, the Republican committee person for the Valley South precinct, posted laminated signs and made dozens […]
Posted inNewsletters
The painful, winding path toward a more perfect union
This is a news analysis from the Center for Public Integrity. Early Wednesday morning, Americans went to bed in the middle of a political cliffhanger. The main character in peril is our democracy. This summer, we grappled with a racial justice reckoning. Now, we’re reckoning with our democracy, though the issues are really inseparable. Days before […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Election Day photos from Public Integrity journalists
One-hundred million Americans had voted before polls even opened on Tuesday. Whether hundreds of thousands of those votes will actually be counted was playing out in court battles up to and through Election Day in keeping with President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign strategy of making it more difficult to vote this year. The nation’s capital […]
Posted inElections
Michigan set to investigate potential attempt to ‘suppress’ Flint voters
This story was published in partnership with Flint Beat. This story also appeared in Flint Beat Flint, Michigan — Following a warning from Michigan leaders about robocalls giving false information to voters, Flint community leaders took to social media to spread the truth, and state officials say an investigation is to come. This morning, Michigan Attorney General […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Lots of states start ballot counting process early this year
This story was originally published by Stateline. This story also appeared in Stateline Many states this year are allowing early processing of ballots to deal with the historically high number of absentee, early in-person, and hand-delivered votes. The states that changed their procedures this year include Maine and South Carolina (which have hotly contested U.S. Senate […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
The District of Columbia learned how to run an election in a pandemic
The District of Columbia had a rough primary election. The Board of Elections encouraged people to vote by mail and then opened only 20 polling stations instead of the usual 143. The flood of requests for mail-in ballots overwhelmed election staff, who received more than 15 times the number of applications they normally do. Some […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
In Kansas, a legacy of voter suppression clouds progress
A law that disenfranchised more than 30,000 Kansans is no longer in effect but looms over this election. Former Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s claims of widespread voter fraud led the Sunflower State to pass a law requiring Kansans to prove U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. Acceptable documents included a passport, birth certificate or […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
South Carolina’s history of disenfranchisement looms over tight U.S. Senate race
Multiple legal battles have played out this fall over how South Carolina will process absentee ballots, with mixed results, and with one case going all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. More than 1.1 million mail-in ballots had been cast in the state as of five days before the election, compared with 133,000 by […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
Arkansas rejects absentee ballots at a high rate, but won’t inform voters
From having one of the earliest registration deadlines allowed by federal law — a month before the election — to not informing voters if a minor error means their absentee ballot won’t be counted, Arkansas employs a variety of disenfranchisement tactics. In the 2016 presidential election, about one in 20 absentee ballots in Arkansas were […]
Posted inSystem Failure
Here’s how Biden could undo Trump’s deregulation agenda
This story was published in partnership with Vox. The Center for Public Integrity is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates betrayals of public trust. This story also appeared in Vox Update: This story has been updated to reflect the results of the Nov. 3 election. Cutting workplace safety inspections. Allowing subpar health insurance plans to be sold […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
How one rural county struggles to find polling places
When she talks to friends and neighbors about voting on Election Day, Ophelia Gould-Faison likes to offer a bit of advice: “Bring your patience, your meds. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. Bring a chair. And wear Depends.” This story also appeared in Stateline Gould-Faison’s precinct in Littleton, North Carolina, has been combined with another nearby one this […]
Posted inBarriers to the Ballot Box
Having problems voting? Tell us about it
The Center for Public Integrity is partnering with ProPublica’s Electionland, a collaborative project to report on voting problems with local and national newsrooms around the country. We will be on the lookout for any problems that prevent people from voting — such as mail ballot delivery problems, changed voting locations, long lines, registration problems, purged voter rolls, […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
In New Jersey, a switch to vote by mail and partial end to felony disenfranchisement
Some states that took extra steps this year to ensure safe voting during the COVID-19 pandemic mailed out absentee ballot applications to all registered voters. New Jersey was among those that went further, mailing every registered voter an actual ballot as is done under full-fledged vote-by-mail systems. The state has also made historic strides this […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
Civil rights groups have blocked efforts to restrict voting in Montana
More than half of Montana’s 726,000 registered voters have already cast a ballot in the Nov. 3 election. The record-breaking number of early votes comes after a monthlong fight between state officials and national Republican leaders over the state’s decision to expand voting by mail during the COVID-19 pandemic. Montana already had voter-friendly rules in […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
In South Dakota, Native Americans face numerous obstacles to voting
Native Americans, who represent 10% of South Dakota’s population, are far less likely to have their votes counted than the state’s white residents. A shortage of polling places accessible to tribal lands was reflected in a 2017 survey finding that 32% of Native Americans in the state said the distance they had to travel to […]
Posted inUS Polling Places
In Oregon, vote by mail has been going strong for two decades
Rhetoric about fraud and voting by mail is a head scratcher in Oregon, which has had a vote-by-mail system since the 1990s. Cases of fraud have happened about as often as fraud in an in-person voting system — pretty much never. Registering to vote is also easy in the state, and it’s possible as late […]
