Tag: voting

Citizens In Eastern Ukraine Will Not Be Allowed To Vote, Zelensky Says

President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that Ukraine and Washington are in talks about holding elections, after earlier this month he much belatedly said while under pressure from Trump that he’s ready to allow national elections, so long as they can be done fairly and freely.

Zelensky indicated current discussions also hinge on the US and other partners helping set the conditions so Ukrainians can vote in safety. He previously stated the country could hold a vote within 60 days – but only if there are security guarantees.

Already over the weekend he erected more barriers to holding a vote, stipulating that citizens in Eastern Ukraine would not be able to participate. 

“Any election in Ukraine can not be held in Russia-occupied parts of the country,” Zelensky has been quoted in international press as saying, and he once again added that a proper voting process can take place only if security is ensured.

He has also lately said that Ukraine’s foreign minister had started the initial work on the infrastructure needed for Ukrainians living abroad to participate.

The four oblasts that President Putin has called “our four new regions” and “our citizens forever” include Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions – and were annexed after a popular referendum during the first year of the war.

Putin has blasted Zelensky’s rule as illegitimate given the canceled elections based on enacting a state of martial law, and President Trump has expressed increasing agreement with this perspective.

Still, Zelensky’s new ‘openness’ with holding an election has been coupled with plenty of caveats and likely immense barriers. For example last week he said—

…that a ceasefire with Russia must be in place before elections can be held in Ukraine, “at least for the duration of the election process and voting”. Ukrainian law forbids wartime elections but US President Donald Trump is pressuring Zelensky, whose term ended last year, to hold a vote.

But Trump this month finally put some real pressure on him, it appears. Given Zelensky had put the brakes on the US-proposed pace plan by definitively rejecting the territorial concessions aspects to the document, the US president’s assessment in a recent Politico interview was blunt and highly critical, going so far as to basically call Ukraine not a democracy.

“They haven’t had an election in a long time,” Trump said. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy anymore.”

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Justice Department Sues Four States Including Georgia After Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger Sides With Democrats in Failure to Produce Voter Rolls

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has launched federal lawsuits against four states, Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia, for refusing to turn over full, unredacted voter registration lists upon request, according to official DOJ filings and press statements.

This latest filing brings the total number of federal lawsuits against states over voter data to 22 nationwide.

The centerpiece of the legal offensive is Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), who has inexplicably aligned with Democratic state officials and election bureaucrats in resisting federal efforts to access complete voter rolls ahead of the 2026 midterms.

DOJ attorneys filed their lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia after the materials provided by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office were incomplete and failed to include key data fields requested by federal officials, such as voters’ full names, dates of birth, residential addresses, state driver’s license numbers, or the last four digits of their Social Security numbers.

Raffensperger, however, said his office provided the Justice Department with documentation outlining the state’s voter roll maintenance practices along with the publicly available voter registration data.

“Georgia has the cleanest voter rolls in the country because we verify citizenship through the federal SAVE database, use SSA (Social Security Administration) data to remove dead voters, and share data with other states to identify and remove voters who have moved,” Secretary Raffensperger said in a statement.

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Ohio Governor Signs Bill To Recriminalize Some Marijuana Activity, Vetoing Provision To Allow THC Drinks For A Year

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) signed a bill into law Friday that bans intoxicating hemp products and makes various changes to the state’s voter-passed marijuana law, including adding crimes such as making it illegal to bring legally purchased marijuana from another state back to Ohio.

DeWine signed Ohio Senate Bill 56, which will take effect in 90 days. He has been urging Ohio lawmakers to do something about intoxicating hemp products for the past nearly two years.

Ohio’s bill complies with recent federal changes by banning intoxicating hemp products from being sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary.

In November, Congress voted to ban products that contain 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container earlier this month when they voted to reopen the government.

Those who work in the intoxicating hemp industry are worried this will put thousands of people out of business.

DeWine line-item-vetoed the THC-infused beverage provision in the bill that would have allowed five milligram THC beverages to be manufactured, distributed, and sold in Ohio until December 31, 2026.

“My veto means that they cannot be sold,” DeWine said during a Friday press conference. “The simplest thing, frankly, to do is to stop it right now instead of going until the date in November set by federal law.”

DeWine said he does not think THC beverages are a good idea.

“I think they create extra problems,” DeWine said.

Ohio S.B. 56 had a provision that said if the federal government legalizes THC beverages, Ohio will consider “a more robust regulatory framework of these products,” according to the bill’s language.

“We got to this point because of poorly drafted federal legislation and people taking advantage of it,” Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said.

“So speculating about what the federal government may do in the future and what we may do as a result, I think, adds to the same problem that has already been created.”

On the marijuana side, the bill would reduce the THC levels in adult-use marijuana extracts from a maximum of 90 percent down to a maximum of 70 percent, cap THC levels in adult-use flower to 35 percent, and prohibit smoking in most public places.

Part of the probable cause portions were removed from the bill, but some of it still remains.

The bill prohibits possessing marijuana in anything outside of its original packaging and criminalizes bringing legal marijuana from another state back to Ohio. It also requires drivers to store marijuana in the trunk of their car while driving.

Ohio S.B. 56 would give 36 percent of adult-use marijuana sale revenue to municipalities and townships that have recreational marijuana dispensaries.

The bill also maintains the 10 percent tax rate on recreational marijuana and keeps home grow the same at six plants per adult and 12 per residence. It also places a cap on 400 marijuana dispensaries in the state.

Ohioans passed a citizen-initiated law to legalize recreational marijuana in 2023 with 57 percent of the vote. Sales started in August 2024 and exceeded $702.5 million in the first year.

Ohio lawmakers can change the law since it passed as a citizen initiative not a constitutional amendment, something they have been trying to do since late 2023.

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Nevada is the latest of 18 states sued by US government for voter data

The lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division adds Nevada to a growing list of 18 states facing litigation over sensitive state voter data.

The suit comes after months of DOJ demands for complete state voting registration lists, which Nevada and other states have repeatedly denied and called intimidation in an effort to influence elections. President Donald Trump lost all 18 states in the 2020 election, with Nevada one of three states with Republican governors.

The Trump administration said in the filings that it would like to use the voting registrations to verify the states are following federal election law in an effort to strengthen voting security.

Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution says states administer elections and determine their “Times, Places and Manner.”

Nevada, along with most other states, had already denied a request to provide the sensitive voter data. The initial request by the DOJ Civil Rights Division in August called for complete voter registration lists – including Social Security numbers and information about driver’s licenses. Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar said at the time that the state needed more time to look over the “unprecedented” request.

“Despite our simple requests for information on how they’re going to keep this data secure, they’ve given us no clear answers,” Aguilar wrote in response to the suit filing announced Friday. “It’s my duty to follow Nevada law and protect the best interests of Nevadans, which includes protecting their sensitive information and access to the ballot.”

The DOJ Civil Rights Division announced similar suits in Colorado, Hawaii and Massachusetts on Friday. They also sued for 2020 voting records from Fulton County, Georgia after an ongoing election interference case against Trump and allies in the state was dismissed last month.

“At this Department of Justice, we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who oversees the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

Wyoming and Indiana provided complete voting registration lists with driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers. Ten other states responded to the DOJ Civil Rights Division with publicly available versions of the voter registration lists, with the sensitive information redacted.

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Pennsylvania Officials Let Unsent Mail Pile Up For A Month, But Promise Mail Voting Is Super Secure

Pennsylvania’s mail scandal — that mail vendor Capitol Presort Services reportedly failed to deliver the state’s mail for a month — is another reason we should not trust the mail with our elections.

Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Gillian McGoldrick reported Saturday that 3.4 million official letters from Pennsylvania state agencies were stuck in limbo from Nov. 3 through Dec. 3. The communications did not get sent until last week, after the state fired the mail vendor and hired another one to send the letters.

It is not clear why state workers can’t handle mailing letters without the complication of a contracted vendor.

Some of the delayed letters contained time-sensitive communications about services with important deadlines, including notices for recipients to interact with agencies or lose benefits, according to McGoldrick’s report. Health coverage, SNAP food benefits, child abuse clearances, decisions about elder abuse and foster homes for kids, along with timely notices of hearings — all from the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services — reportedly piled up at the vendor instead of being given to the U.S. Postal Service for delivery.

Important communications from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation were also delayed. Halted mail included driver’s license and vehicle registration renewal reminders, vehicle registration cards, driver’s license camera cards, and address card updates.

Just weeks ago, Gov. Josh Shapiro was making the media rounds, attacking President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance about putting Pennsylvanians in peril because of the government shutdown, when at the same time his own administration was failing to deliver essential communications about these very services through the mail.

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Ohio Governor Says He’ll Sign Bill To Roll Back Marijuana Legalization And Restrict ‘Juiced-Up Hemp’ Products

Ohio’s Republican governor says he will sign a controversial bill to scale back the state’s voter-approved marijuana law and ban the sale of what he described as “juiced-up hemp” products that fall outside of a recently revised federal definition for the crop unless they’re sold at licensed cannabis dispensaries.

Just days after the legislature gave final approval to the marijuana legislation, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) said on Thursday that he intends to enact it into law.

“To me, it’s a major, major victory, and it’s a long time coming. But it’s a major victory, I think, for kids in the state,” he said, according to The Columbus Dispatch. “There’s going to be some regulation. They won’t be able to have juiced-up hemp gummies. They won’t be able to walk into a gas station and an 11-year-old buy this stuff.”

The governor did not respond to a question about whether the marijuana components of the legislation undermined the will of voters who approved adult-use legalization in 2023.

The bill on DeWine’s desk would recriminalize certain marijuana activity that was legalized under that ballot initiative, and it’d also remove anti-discrimination protections for cannabis consumers that were enacted under that law.

After the House revised the initial Senate-passed legislation, removing certain controversial provisions, the Senate quickly rejected those changes in October. That led to the appointment of a bicameral conference committee to resolve outstanding differences between the chambers. That panel then approved a negotiated form of the bill, which passed the House last month and has since cleared the Senate.

To advocates’ disappointment, the final version of the measure now heading to the governor’s desk would eliminate language in current statute providing anti-discrimination protections for people who lawfully use cannabis. That includes protections meant to prevent adverse actions in the context of child custody rights, the ability to qualify for organ transplants and professional licensing.

It would also recriminalize possessing marijuana from any source that isn’t a state-licensed dispensary in Ohio or from a legal homegrow. As such, people could be charged with a crime for carrying cannabis they bought at a legal retailer in neighboring Michigan.

Additionally, it would ban smoking cannabis at outdoor public locations such as bar patios—and it would allow landlords to prohibit vaping marijuana at rented homes. Violating that latter policy, even if it involves vaping in a person’s own backyard at a rental home, would constitute a misdemeanor offense.

The legislation would also replace what had been a proposed regulatory framework for intoxicating hemp that the House had approved with a broad prohibition on sales outside marijuana dispensaries following a recent federal move to recriminalize such products.

Last month, Sen. Stephen Huffman (R), the primary sponsor, defended the upheaval of the state’s marijuana law, saying voters approved an initiative that amended the state’s revised code, not its Constitution, so they “knew that the General Assembly could come at any time” and “pass a bill to get rid of the entire thing.”

“But we’re not,” he said. “I think overall, for the average person that does recreational or medical marijuana, this bill will make it better… It’s going to be reasonable for most Ohioans.”

Under the bill, hemp items with more than 0.4 mg of total THC per container, or those containing synthetic cannabinoids, could no longer be sold outside of a licensed marijuana dispensary setting. That would align with a newly enacted federal hemp law included in an appropriations package signed by President Donald Trump last month.

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Ohio Lawmakers Pass Bill To Roll Back Voter-Approved Marijuana Law And Impose Hemp Restrictions, Sending It To Governor

The Ohio Senate has voted to concur with a House-amended bill to scale back the state’s voter-approved marijuana law and ban the sale of hemp products that fall outside of a recently revised federal definition for the crop unless they’re sold at licensed cannabis dispensaries.

The measure from Sen. Stephen Huffman (R) was substantively revised in the House last month, but the originating chamber voted 22-7 on Tuesday to accept those changes and send the legislation to Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) desk.

The legislation now pending the governor’s signature would recriminalize certain marijuana activity that was legalized under a ballot initiative that passed in 2023  as well as remove anti-discrimination protections for cannabis consumers that were enacted under that law.

After the House revised the initial Senate-passed legislation, removing certain controversial provisions, the Senate quickly rejected those changes in October. That led to the appointment of a bicameral conference committee to resolve outstanding differences between the chambers. That panel then approved a negotiated form of the bill, which passed the House last month and has now cleared the Senate.

To advocates’ disappointment, the final version of the measure now heading to the governor’s desk would eliminate language in current statute providing anti-discrimination protections for people who lawfully use cannabis. That includes protections meant to prevent adverse actions in the context of child custody rights, the ability to qualify for organ transplants and professional licensing.

It would also recriminalize possessing marijuana from any source that isn’t a state-licensed dispensary in Ohio or from a legal homegrow. As such, people could be charged with a crime for carrying cannabis they bought at a legal retailer in neighboring Michigan.

Additionally, it would ban smoking cannabis at outdoor public locations such as bar patios—and it would allow landlords to prohibit vaping marijuana at rented homes. Violating that latter policy, even if it involves vaping in a person’s own backyard at a rental home, would constitute a misdemeanor offense.

The legislation would also replace what had been a proposed regulatory framework for intoxicating hemp that the House had approved with a broad prohibition on sales outside marijuana dispensaries following a recent federal move to recriminalize such products.

“In short, this bill leaves the crux of Issue 2 and marijuana access intact, while providing for several important public safety concerns and also regulations that protect Ohio children,” Huffman argued on the Senate floor ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

Sen. Bill DeMora (D), however, said the legislation undermines the will of voters.

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Michigan Judge Allows Marijuana Tax Increase To Take Effect Despite Industry Lawsuit

A group of cannabis industry advocates were unable to convince a Michigan Court of Claims judge that they would face irreparable harm if a new 24 percent wholesale tax on marijuana went into effect to fund the state’s future road repairs.

In an opinion issued Monday, Court of Claims Judge Sima Patel said she was denying a request for a preliminary injunction from the plaintiffs in Holistic Research Group Inc./Michigan Cannabis Industry v. Michigan Department of Treasury.

The consolidated lawsuits posited that the new tax, passed in October as part of a comprehensive 2025-26 budget deal to raise new revenue for road repairs and rebuilds through 2030, was unconstitutional because it violated the title-object clause of the state’s Constitution.

Patel on Monday, after hearing oral arguments in the matter in November, said the industry advocates didn’t make a supported argument that a real constitutional issue existed, nor did the group succinctly show that the Michigan Regulation and Taxation of Marijuana Act, which legalized the use and sale of cannabis in Michigan, was the only statutory mechanism to enact taxes on pot.

“The [road funding act] is consistent with the [marijuana taxation act]. The plaintiffs contend that the phrase ‘all other taxes’…refers only to generally applicable taxes, like the 6 percent sales tax imposed on all retail sales,” she wrote. “If that were true, however, the initiative could have simply said that. Instead, the initiative stated plainly that the 10 percent retail excise tax was in addition to ‘all other taxes.’ And the phrase ‘all other’ is broad and expansive. According to the plain meaning of these terms, ‘all other taxes’ broadly means all taxes other than the tax imposed by [the marijuana taxation act].”

Patel further noted that the Legislature did not directly amend any of the existing taxes in the regulatory act or replace it with the new tax in the road funding legislation; rather, the Legislature imposed a new separate tax, which is permitted under the regulatory act.

“The two statutes can be read together,” Patel wrote.

The claim regarding the mechanism by which a new tax could be enacted was therefore dismissed, Patel wrote.

Patel did, however, allow the case to move forward to determine if the tax interferes with the intent of the voter-initiated law that allowed marijuana consumption, regulations and sales. Patel said a genuine issue of fact remained on that issue, which required further consideration before the court.

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HUGE! Court Rules Defiant Michigan SOS Benson Can’t Manipulate Voter Rolls By Using Illegal Guidance to Clerks—ANOTHER Loss For America’s Dirtiest SOS

On December 4, 2025, a Michigan Court of Claims judge delivered a crushing blow to Jocelyn Benson’s attempts to weaken mail-in ballot safeguards. In another significant victory for election integrity in Michigan, a Michigan Court of Claims judge has once again ruled against Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, striking down her “guidance” that allowed absentee ballots with mismatched or missing identifying numbers to be processed and counted as “challenged” rather than rejected outright.

In 2021, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was given an award for her “outstanding” election work that gave Basement Joe an inexplicable victory in the wee hours of the morning on the day after the 2020 election in Michigan, a state President Trump won in 2016.

The decision, handed down on December 4, 2025, reinforces a key anti-fraud safeguard enacted by the state Legislature in 2024, which mandates that ballots can only be tabulated when the unique numbers on the ballot stub and envelope match perfectly. Benson’s instructions had directed clerks to bypass this requirement, potentially opening the door to irregularities (or cheating) in absentee voter ballot processing.

This latest defeat marks yet another instance of Michigan’s crooked Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson being slapped down by a Michigan court for abusing her authority to loosen critical protections around mail-in voting. The suit, which was brought by the Republican National Committee, the Michigan Republican Party, and Chesterfield Township Clerk Cindy Berry, highlighted how Benson’s directives disregarded legislative intent to prevent fraud by ensuring ballot traceability.

Michigan’s dishonest secretary of state recently refused a request by the DOJ to turn over Michigan’s undredacted voter rolls. The defiant Benson, who is currently running to become the Democratic Party’s candidate for Michigan governor, made a video explaining that the reason she’s refusing to turn over her corrupt voter rolls is that she’s protecting the privacy of Michigan citizens by not revealing their social security numbers to the federal government, the same federal government that issues their social security numbers.

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DOJ Sues SIX More States for Withholding Voter Rolls — 14 States Now Targeted as Bondi and Dhillon Launch Aggressive Nationwide Crackdown

The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced Tuesday that it has filed federal lawsuits against six additional states, Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, for refusing to hand over their statewide voter registration lists, as required under federal law.

Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who has taken a dramatically tougher posture on election transparency than her predecessors, called the states’ stonewalling a direct threat to clean elections.

“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi.

“The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet K. Dhillon, who has led the most aggressive election-integrity enforcement push in modern DOJ history, went further, accusing noncompliant states of actively undermining public trust.

“Our federal elections laws ensure every American citizen may vote freely and fairly,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

“States that continue to defy federal voting laws interfere with our mission of ensuring that Americans have accurate voter lists as they go to the polls, that every vote counts equally, and that all voters have confidence in election results. At this Department of Justice, we will not stand for this open defiance of federal civil rights laws.”

This latest wave of lawsuits brings the total number of states now facing DOJ litigation to fourteen.

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