Federal actions around voting system expand weeks ahead of midterms

With the midterms two weeks off, Washington's growing involvement in how states run elections is stirring worry that public faith in the process is eroding. Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican, says she has never before faced danger from inside government, having dealt only with outside hackers and other non-state actors in earlier cycles, according to CBS News.

The Justice Department asked nearly every state for complete voter rolls, including Social Security numbers, birth dates and driver's license numbers. Henderson and officials in 29 other states refused, and the department sued every one. The administration says it wants to remove ineligible immigrants, and claims, without evidence, 278,000 noncitizens are registered. Henderson found 52 questionable names among over 2 million Utah voters, and the department has told her in writing she is under investigation. On Thursday, the department also took California to court over mail ballots going to roughly 20,000 people it labels likely noncitizens. California Secretary of State Shirley Weber countered that officials never explained how those individuals were singled out.

In January, armed agents removed more than 600 boxes of 2020 election records from Fulton County, Georgia. Commissioner Dana Barrett, a Democrat, called the raid an attempt to undermine future elections.

Summarized by PolitiKool from CBS News’s reporting. Read the full story at CBS News →