A December audit of Utah’s elections found just two improper votes among 2 million ballots cast statewide. Yet Republican lawmakers cited “election integrity” concerns in pushing to roll back vote-by-mail.
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Utah Was a Rare Red State to Champion Mail Voting. That Era Is Ending. - Bolts
Inspired by the architects of Project 2025, the Utah legislature adopted a Republican bill to end universal mail voting and impose new restrictions...
Arkansas Senator Kim Hammer authored several new bills this year restricting ballot initiatives. Now, he’s running for secretary of state — where he’d oversee the very rules he created, with new sweeping powers over citizen-led measures.
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“It Just Feels Like Death”: Barrage of New Rules Target Arkansas Ballot Initiatives - Bolts
It’s a familiar sight in Arkansas: Canvassers stop passersby in front of a local grocery store or town library and ask them if they’d be willin...
Colorado became the first state to require polling places in all county jails, despite officials insisting incarcerated people already had ballot access. The result? Turnout in jails surged statewide.
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Jail Voting Soars in Colorado After State Mandates Polling Places in County Lockups - Bolts
Local officials had claimed they were already giving detained people ballot access, but Colorado's first-in-the-nation mandate forced their ha...
First, LA sheriff’s officials lobbied to get a watchdog prosecuted. Now, they’re using the case “as justification for refusing to submit to meaningful oversight” and declining to share misconduct records, says former oversight commissioner Sean Kennedy.
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The Curious Case Against a Los Angeles Sheriff Watchdog - Bolts
Diana Teran worked for years to root out misconduct in the LA Sheriff’s Department, but now she faces charges from the state AG related to that w...
Two years after liberals flipped Wisconsin’s supreme court, ushering in a new era on election issues from gerrymandering to drop boxes, conservatives hope to win it back in April.
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A Supreme Court Race May Shuffle the Rules of Wisconsin's Democracy, Again - Bolts
T.R. Edwards grew up with stories from his grandmother Kathleen about her struggle to vote as a Black woman in Wisconsin: A child of the Jim Crow s...
Robert McWhirter, an expert in constitutional and immigration law, is not aware of any past instance in which a local law enforcement official has faced federal charges for not complying with an ICE directive. And yet the DOJ is threatening prosecutions.
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“A Chilling Effect”: A New York County Faces Federal Threats for Not Complying with ICE - Bolts
The Tompkins County sheriff released a man who’d served his sentence. Now the Trump administration, eager to force local officials to collaborate...
“We need to make sure that eligible voters are able to exercise their right to vote without having to jump through a lot of unnecessary hoops,” Susan Crawford, who is running for the state supreme court in Wisconsin, told Bolts.
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A Supreme Court Race May Shuffle the Rules of Wisconsin's Democracy, Again - Bolts
T.R. Edwards grew up with stories from his grandmother Kathleen about her struggle to vote as a Black woman in Wisconsin: A child of the Jim Crow s...
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Please pitch us! - Bolts
If you have a story pitch that would fit Bolts, we would love to hear from you.
Florida’s governor has removed elected officials before. New legislation gives him more leeway to do so to force local governments to comply with ICE instructions.
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In Florida GOP’s New Immigration Crackdown, a Familiar Play of Overriding Local Democracy - Bolts
Florida Republicans spent weeks squabbling over rival immigration bills. Their conflict wasn’t over significant policy differences: They agreed o...
Sheriff Bill Waybourn was reelected despite him flouting state law requiring investigations into jail deaths, which have spiked on his watch. Texas’ jail commission, which has ordered him to comply, only learned of the violation after Bolts' reporting.
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A Scandal-Plagued Sheriff Wins Another Term in North Texas - Bolts
Fort Worth advocates who have spent years protesting and demanding outside intervention over rising jail deaths say they’ll keep pursuing other p...