The fights over who votes and which ballots count

With early voting under way, the Justice Department is charging alleged noncitizen voters and suing California over mail ballots, New Hampshire is in court over student IDs, and the Supreme Court weighed in on ad rates.

Noncitizen voting cases

On October 19, the Justice Department announced charges against 28 people in California in an operation it calls "Operation Protect the Vote." It says all 28 are lawful permanent residents (green-card holders), not citizens; charges include false statements on naturalization applications and fraudulent voter registrations. The department says it has charged 113 people in 20 states with illegal voting or registration offenses over several weeks.

Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said: "This causes real damage to real elections and real damage to American citizens." Studies find noncitizen voting is very rare, hard to prove and has not been shown to change election outcomes.

The California mail-ballot lawsuit

The Justice Department sued California to stop counting mail ballots from about 20,000 people it has flagged as "likely" noncitizens until their citizenship is verified. California's secretary of state says the department has offered no evidence for the claim. Los Angeles County's registrar said the department "has chosen to litigate their unverified assertions of voting eligibility." A McCotter letter warned that poll workers who knowingly count such ballots "risk becoming aiders and abettors to a federal crime."

New Hampshire student IDs

A new state law and an April directive allowed only government-issued IDs for voting. On October 2, federal Judge Joseph Laplante ruled the directive went too far and that student IDs can be considered under a state "safety-valve" provision; he and the 1st Circuit declined to pause that ruling. The state has asked the Supreme Court to block it. Meanwhile, the secretary of state's revised guidance says election officials may consider a student ID along with other evidence.

Political ad rates

On October 14, the Supreme Court paused a 4th Circuit ruling that had blocked the FCC from extending discounted broadcast ad rates to political parties and joint fundraising committees. Parties can keep the lower rates through the midterms. Justices Sotomayor and Jackson would have denied the request.

A fake-poll scandal

On October 20, Wedgewood Polls said most of its published surveys were fabricated as an experiment to show weak oversight in polling. Aggregators and outlets had cited them; the Atlas has removed them from its race pages.

The arguments

Those favoring tougher enforcement say only citizens may vote, that even rare fraud undermines trust, and that verifying eligibility before ballots are counted is common sense. Critics say the federal government is using unverified lists and prosecutions close to an election to intimidate eligible voters and election workers, and that the real risk is lawful voters being turned away.