Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Georgia moves to purge more voters than it's adding

Georgia voters

This purge would remove about 330,000 voters from Georgia's election rolls before the state's March 2020 primary.

Jessica McGowan/Getty Images

Georgia is looking to take even more people off the election voter rolls in the coming months (about 330,000) than have registered to vote so far this year (310,000).

The astonishing but seemingly coincidental similarity of those big numbers helps underscore, once again, how the state has become one of the nation's prime voting rights battlegrounds just as it has also become a newly competitive battleground electorally.

After one of the closest governor's races of last year, Democrats have high hopes for toppling the GOP's 14-year hold on all statewide contests by staging strong runs for both of the state's Senate seats and Georgia's 16 electoral votes. But the party's chances rest heavily on a huge turnout, especially by African-Americans and people who only think about voting in presidential years.

That could be made more difficult after the coming purge, which will target registrants who have not cast ballots in several years. The state estimates the vast majority of those people have died or moved away, and those who are still in Georgia but have been politically inactive will get a chance to keep their registration current.


The secretary of state's office, which this week reported the surge in new registrations thanks in large part to the automatic registration of qualified people whenever they renew a driver's license, detailed its planned cleanup of the rolls just hours later.

Notices will be sent in coming days to the last known address of each inactive voter. To remain registered they must return a postage-paid form, re-register online or cast a ballot in next week's local elections. Those who don't respond in 30 days will have their names removed before year's end, well in advance of the March primary.

This is different from the last purge in Georgia, the largest single removal of voters in American history, when 534,00 registrations were canceled in 2017 without any warning. After a wave of complaints, the General Assembly passed a law requiring advance notice, but voting rights advocates say the system remains too harshly punitive for people who have decided not to vote in a while.

Still, last year the Supreme Court upheld Ohio's system for dropping voters who haven't cast ballots over a period of time. This month the state culled culled 182,000 registrations, or 2 percent of the statewide total, mostly people who had not gone to the polls in six years.

But Ohio makes public the names of potential cancellations, allowing voting rights groups to help them reregister. The Georgia secretary of state's office hasn't decided whether it it will make its roster public.

Read More

Xavier Becerra Steps Back Into California Politics

Xavier Becerra

Xavier Becerra Steps Back Into California Politics

Xavier Becerra is once again stepping onto familiar ground. After serving in Congress, leading California’s Department of Justice, and joining President Joe Biden’s Cabinet as Secretary of Health and Human Services, he is now seeking the governorship of his home state. His campaign marks both a return to local politics and a renewed confrontation with Donald Trump, now back in the White House.

Becerra’s message combines pragmatism and resistance. “We’ll continue to be a leader, a fighter, and a vision of what can be in the United States,” he said in his recent interview with Latino News Network. He recalled his years as California’s attorney general, when he “had to take him on” to defend the state’s laws and families. Between 2017 and 2021, Becerra filed or joined more than 120 lawsuits against the Trump administration, covering immigration, environmental protection, civil rights, and healthcare. “We were able to defend California, its values and its people,” he said.

Keep ReadingShow less
​Voting booths in a high school.

During a recent visit to Indianapolis, VP JD Vance pressed Indiana Republicans to consider mid-decade redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms.

Getty Images, mphillips007

JD Vance Presses Indiana GOP To Redraw Congressional Map

On October 10, Vice President JD Vance visited Indianapolis to meet with Republican lawmakers, urging them to consider redrawing Indiana’s congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The visit marked Vance’s third trip to the state in recent months, underscoring the Trump administration’s aggressive push to expand Republican control in Congress.

Vance’s meetings are part of a broader national strategy led by President Donald Trump to encourage GOP-led states to revise district boundaries mid-decade. States like Missouri and Texas have already passed new maps, while Indiana remains hesitant. Governor Mike Braun has met with Vance and other Republican leaders. Still, he has yet to commit to calling a special legislative session. Braun emphasized that any decision must ensure “fair representation for every Hoosier."

Keep ReadingShow less
A child looks into an empty fridge-freezer in a domestic kitchen.

The Trump administration’s suspension of the USDA’s Household Food Security Report halts decades of hunger data tracking.

Getty Images, Catherine Falls Commercial

Trump Gives Up the Fight Against Hunger

A Vanishing Measure of Hunger

Consider a hunger policy director at a state Department of Social Services studying food insecurity data across the state. For years, she has relied on the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report to identify where hunger is rising, how many families are skipping meals, and how many children go to bed hungry. Those numbers help her target resources and advocate for stronger programs.

Now there is no new data. The survey has been “suspended for review,” officially to allow for a “methodological reassessment” and cost analysis. Critics say the timing and language suggest political motives. It is one of many federal data programs quietly dropped under a Trump executive order on so-called “nonessential statistics,” a phrase that almost parodies itself. Labeling hunger data “nonessential” is like turning off a fire alarm because it makes too much noise; it implies that acknowledging food insecurity is optional and reveals more about the administration’s priorities than reality.

Keep ReadingShow less
Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

U.S. President Donald Trump poses with the signed agreement at a world leaders' summit on ending the Gaza war on October 13, 2025 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

(Photo by Suzanne Plunkett - Pool / Getty Images)

Standing Up for Democracy Requires Giving the Other Side Credit When It Is Deserved

American political leaders have forgotten how to be gracious to their opponents when people on the other side do something for which they deserve credit. Our antagonisms have become so deep and bitter that we are reluctant to give an inch to our political adversaries.

This is not good for democracy.

Keep ReadingShow less