Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories
USA Presidential voters on electoral college map

The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Federalism at Its Best

​People arrive at a polling location on the first day of early voting in Texas

Early voting records should scare GOP

​Border patrol SUV

How Border Policies Are Reshaping South Texas Politics

Five men sitting on one side of a table, as a panel at an event.

Congressional Inaction Raises Constitutional Change Alternative

Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico

Are Independent Voters About to Flip Texas?

Flawed multistate voter database turned off to settle civil rights suit

President Trump and Kris Kobach

When he was Kansas secretary of State, Kris Kobach was the main force behind a now-shuttered program to spot people who were registered to vote in more than one state. He later chaired President Trump's voter fraud commission.

Scott Olson/Getty Images
The Fulcrum
By The FulcrumDec 11, 2019
The Fulcrum
The Fulcrum staff.
See More Writings by author

A controversial database used to check whether voters are registered in more than one state has been suspended until security safeguards are put in place.

Use of the Interstate Crosscheck program was put on hold as part of the settlement of a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas on behalf of nearly 1,000 voters whose partial Social Security numbers were exposed by Florida officials through an open records request.

Kansas began operating the multistate program 14 years ago but it has not been used since 2017, when a federal audit discovered its security vulnerabilities.

The settlement includes a list of security improvements the state has promised to make, the ACLU said Tuesday. The civil rights group said the settlement includes a statement from Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab's office admitting it made a mistake in allowing the personal information to be disclosed.

Schwab, a Republican, and his office have not shared any comments and were still working on final details of the settlement, which has not yet been posted on the federal courts website.

At least two dozen states shared voter registration records in the Crosscheck program before it was shut down. The program attempted to match names and birthdates to spot people who were registered in more than one state. But it had a high error rate. And that, along with the security problems, caused eight states to drop out of the program.

"This is a victory not only for our clients but for every Kansas voter," ACLU Of Kansas Executive Director Nadine Johnson said of the agreement.

The system was created at the behest of Republican Kris Kobach, who was then the secretary of state and has gone on to be one of the most prominent and polarizing election officials in the country. He chaired President Trump's commission to root out voter fraud, which essentially came up empty handed, lost the governor's race last year and is now seeking the GOP nomination for an open Senate seat.

Kobach's successor as secretary of state had ordered a review to determine whether to scrap Crosscheck all together.


Latest news

Americans Voting in an Election
Elections

Voting Is Not Just a Privilege It Is Every Citizens’ Responsibility

Capitol building with American flag behind it
Elections

Both Parties Have Forgotten How to Lose: It’s Time for Guardrails

Benjamin Franklin's portrait on the one hundred-dollar bill alongside the US flag
Money & Politics

The Power of the Mega-Rich Perverts the Democratic Process

Read More

Business meeting, blurred background and people in office for teamwork, collaboration and planning

Another recruitment drive won’t fix a nonprofit board. A practical guide to sharing real decision-making power with diverse members: acknowledge, affirm, act.

Jacob Wackerhausen/Getty Images

Before Recruiting Diverse Board Members, Examine Who Holds Power

Nonprofit leaders keep asking me where they will find the next generation of diverse board talent. My question is what those leaders will be allowed to change once they arrive. In this piece, I outline concrete steps boards can take to ensure diverse members have real opportunities to shape organizational decision-making and to translate good intentions into meaningful progress.

In my board service and consulting work, I hear the concern from executives and grassroots activists alike. They worry about recruiting successors, sustaining funding, and governing organizations whose work increasingly depends on partnerships beyond their own walls. I share those concerns. I also wonder whether another recruitment initiative will solve what troubles them.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Pennsylvania state capitol building.

The Pennsylvania state capitol building.

jimfeng/Getty Images

Pennsylvania’s Bipartisan Exchange Is Rebuilding Trust in Governance

The University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics has nearly 40 years of experience working with legislators from different political parties, and it is building on this history by drawing on lessons from the successful American Congressional Exchange model, begun in 2018 at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and from state exchanges now underway in Minnesota and Michigan. The University of Pittsburgh Institute of Politics, in collaboration with the Bridge Alliance, has launched the Pennsylvania Legislative Exchange.

This state-based, systematic approach is designed to foster better relationships and build trust across the political aisle with the following guiding principles:

Keep ReadingShow less
Shadow on a wall of Judge hitting gavel in court, concept of justice, law, and legal protection

DOJ lawsuits in Alaska and California preview post-Election Day fights over certification and seating winners. Here’s how officials and voters can prepare.

Aitor Diago / Getty Images

The Lawsuits Will Lose. The Delays Will Still Win.

Less than two weeks before Election Day, President Trump’s Justice Department asked a federal court to stop Alaska from certifying its U.S. Senate race if Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan loses to Democrat Mary Peltola. The lawsuit claims that a second candidate on the ballot, Daniel J. Sullivan, will confuse voters. That argument went nowhere in June, when the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that the state had no legal way to remove him from the ballot. Asked about the suit, the president took credit. “I’m the one that said do it,” he told reporters.

Alongside the Alaska suit, the Trump administration sued California to keep the state from counting mail ballots from 20,000 people it calls “likely” noncitizens. Over the summer, the Department of Homeland Security put that number at 190,000. Legal experts expect both suits to fail, as so many suits like them have. Still, Alaska and California give us an early look at what the weeks after November 3rd could bring: recount demands, calls to review or throw out ballots, and pressure to delay seating winners.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026